
China has offered Mercosur to consider the possibility of negotiating a free trade agreement revealed Uruguay, when the South American block is going through one of its worst moments ever so distant from the integration process pledges of 1991.

Argentina's state-controlled energy company YPF will need to invest 35 billion dollars to boost falling natural gas and oil output by more than a quarter by 2017, the new chief executive said on Tuesday in Buenos Aires.

Brazil’s Vale Doce, the world's second-largest miner, expects to overcome obstacles that prompted management to re-assess a 3 billion dollars potash project in the Argentine province of Mendoza, the company's head of fertilizers, Roger Downey, said.

External competitiveness of Uruguayan goods dropped for the sixth month running in April because locally produced goods’ prices in US dollars dropped less than those of its main trade partners according to figures released by the Central bank.

The governments of Canada and the US are “concerned” and “closely following” events in Uruguay’s flag air carrier Pluna since banks and an investment fund from the two countries are heavily involved in the running of the money-loosing company is spite of repeated financial support from the Uruguayan government.

Spain energy Group Repsol regained rights on a 6% warranty-stake in the Argentine oil and gas giant YPF after the Petersen Group, which used to own 25.46% of the company, lost it as the result of not having met payments for the loan through which they initially enter the business without paying a single cent.

Defence Minister Celso Amorim said on Wednesday Brazil’s growing need to protect its borders, the Amazon rainforest, and massive offshore oil discoveries would lead it to gradually increase defence spending by a quarter to reach roughly 2% of the country’s GDP.

Spanish company Repsol has said it is pulling out of Cuba after failing in a recent attempt to find oil off the island. Chairman Antonio Brufau told journalists and investors that Repsol won't do another well in Cuba.

British natural gas firm BG Group Plc said on Tuesday it had signed a definitive binding agreement to sell its entire 60.1% stake in Comgas to Brazilian energy company Cosan S.A. for 3.4 billion Brazilian Reais, which is about $1.7 billion at current exchange rates.

Brazilian sugar and ethanol producer Cosan and the country's largest rice producer, Camil Alimentos, reached an agreement to merge their food divisions, Cosan said in a statement this week.