
The Latin American economy has entered a declining phase and will further slow down in coming months according to a report from the Brazilian think-tank Getulio Vargas Foundation, FGV.

The Mexican president underlined the strategic importance of Uruguay since it is the only Mercosur member that has a free trade agreement with Mexico, thus making it the ‘strategic partner’ of Mexico in Mercosur.

Argentine Economy Minister and Vice-President elect Amado Boudou urged Latin American countries to increase the use of local currencies in regional trade instead of depending on other currency such as the dollar.

The ethics committee in Peru's Congress voted on Tuesday to suspend Vice President Omar Chehade from the legislature over corruption allegations, increasing pressure on him to resign from both posts.

Colombia's FARC guerrillas named Timoleon Jimenez, known as Timochenko, as the group's new leader after its previous boss was killed this month, according to a rebel statement published on a website.

Uruguayan president Jose Mujica arrived Tuesday in Mexico for a two day visit to promote bilateral trade and to address with his host Felipe Calderon issues related to recent discrepancies with the G20 that described Uruguay and Panama as “fiscal havens”.

The seventh round of Mercosur/EU trade negotiations held in Montevideo ended with “progress in some areas at regulation and norms levels” and with the commitment of exchanging proposals in mid 2012, according to Joao Aguiar Machado head of the EU team.

A large majority of banks in Latin America and the Caribbean consider small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) as a strategic part of their business and are upbeat about expanding their business to this sector in the next two years, according to the Latin American Banking Federation, Feleban.

Mexican remittances rose at the fastest pace in five years in September as immigrant workers took advantage of the Peso’s decline to send more money to relatives, according to the Mexican Central bank.

Uruguay has become a net creditor of the International Monetary Fund and given this condition has helped in the bailing out of such countries as Ireland and Angola, revealed a top authority of the Central Bank during a hearing before the country’s Senate’s Finance Committee.