Mercosur

• Wednesday, August 15th 2012 - 09:43 UTC

  Unasur ratifies sanctions; Paraguay president more concerned with OAS position

  

  Unasur ratified on Tuesday Paraguay’s suspension from the block at a meeting of the so called High Level Group in Lima, Peru which assessed the situation of the landlocked country.

• Wednesday, August 15th 2012 - 09:10 UTC

  Paraguayan president calls for moderation from the Senate on the Venezuela issue

  

  Paraguayan president Federico Franco called for moderation and time from members of Congress when they begin considering Venezuela’s request to become a full member of Mercosur, since the issue needs of “a good in depth analysis and no hasty decision”.

• Tuesday, August 14th 2012 - 23:38 UTC

  Mercosur farmers plan to sow record soybean area; stocks drop to half from a year ago

  

  Mercosur farmers in Brazil and Argentina are forecast to plant more soybeans for harvesting this season in response to higher prices, at the expense of wheat and corn sowing, according to Oil World. Paraguay and Uruguay Agriculture ministries have also anticipated an increase in the soybeans planted areas.

• Saturday, August 11th 2012 - 11:45 UTC

  Uruguay will continue with Mercosur but is also interested in the Pacific alliance

  

  Uruguay will continue “to look after” Mercosur in spite of the strong diplomatic discrepancies with Argentina, but will also continue with an interest in participating in other trade blocks of the region, said President Jose Mujica.

• Saturday, August 11th 2012 - 11:03 UTC

  China only interested in commodities, not in products that reach supermarkets

  

  Trade with China for Argentina has great opportunities but also great threats because the Asian giant is only interested in produce with no added value, warned the head of Argentina’s Industrial Union, Ignacio De Mendiguren.

• Saturday, August 11th 2012 - 10:04 UTC

  Paraguay sounding the possibility of joining the Pacific Group

  

  Paraguay is sounding the recently created Pacific Block made up of Colombia, Peru, Chile and Mexico with the possibility of considering applying to join it, revealed the country’s Foreign affairs minister Jose Fernandez Estigarribia.

• Friday, August 10th 2012 - 08:41 UTC

  Short of soy Brazil meat producers want to import from Bolivia

  

  Meat producers in Brazil's Mato Grosso do Sul state are lobbying the government to approve soy imports from neighbouring Bolivia after drought shrank supplies in the world's second grower, a state official and analysts.

• Wednesday, August 8th 2012 - 18:21 UTC

  Paraguay to appeal Mercosur sanctions before the The Hague Court of Justice

  

  The Paraguayan government had decided to appeal before the International Court of Justice in The Hague the suspension imposed on Paraguay by the governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay as a sanction for the removal of Fernando Lugo as president of the country, last June 22.

• Tuesday, August 7th 2012 - 20:14 UTC

  Mercosur has only benefited Brazil in the last ten years with a surplus of 36.8bn

  

  Brazil is the only country that in the last ten years has benefited from Mercosur with an intra-zone trade surplus of 36.8 billion dollars while the other three full members, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay have accumulated huge deficits in the same period, according to Argentine economist Orlando Ferreres a regular columnist from La Nacion with graduate studies in Harvard.

• Tuesday, August 7th 2012 - 08:33 UTC

  Uruguay reacts with silence to repeated Argentine provocations

  

  The Uruguayan government said on Monday there will be no public statements on the latest “situations” with Argentina, and Uruguay will keep to what was agreed at presidential level during the last (31 July) Mercosur extraordinary meeting in Brasilia.