Mercosur

• Friday, May 25th 2012 - 07:01 UTC

  Three former presidents admit Mercosur has failed and has Uruguay ‘trapped’

  

  Three former Uruguayan presidents recommended the current administration that without abandoning Mercosur, it should look at major trade blocks associations but at the same time a strong self criticism is needed because maybe the problem is not in Mercosur but in Uruguay.

• Friday, May 25th 2012 - 01:21 UTC

  Argentina attacks WTO and US on trade issues at OECD ministerial round

  

  In an offensive to counter recent attacks on Argentina’s restrictive trade policies, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman expressed at the World Trade Organization, WTO, his government’s concern with the current course of global negotiations which face the serious risk of abandoning the development goals agreed when the launching of the current Doha Round of negotiations back in 2001.

• Tuesday, May 22nd 2012 - 06:09 UTC

  Argentina proposal to increase Mercosur common external tariff from 22% to 35%

  

  Argentina is planning to propose its fellow Mercosur members to increase the common external tariff, CET from the current 22% to 35%, when they meet at the next summit in Mendoza. Argentina currently holds the pro tempore chair of the group and at the coming summit the helm will be transferred to Brazil.

• Monday, May 21st 2012 - 03:34 UTC

  Investors will opt for Uruguay and its legal system, says Spanish ambassador

  

  The seizure of YPF by Argentina can be expected to have a positive repercussion for Uruguay since the country has an enviable legal system and keeps to the rules of the game, said the new Spanish ambassador in Montevideo, Roberto Varela.

• Friday, May 18th 2012 - 18:10 UTC

  Latam Nobel Prize blames Peronism for Argentina’s “self destruction” addiction

  

  Literature Nobel Prize Mario Vargas Llosa blamed Peronism for the self-destruction which is leading Argentina to underdevelopment, poverty and populism, and compared the dominating political movement trajectory to that which took Adolf Hitler to power.

• Friday, May 18th 2012 - 09:41 UTC

  Argentine former central bank chief anticipates “de facto devaluation”

  

  A former Argentine central bank president warned that if the economy follows on the current course, a “de facto devaluation” is round the corner because of the growing gap between the official and parallel exchange rates for the US dollar.

• Thursday, May 17th 2012 - 21:24 UTC

  Spain supports EU/Mercosur trade accord on a “region to region” basis respecting WTO rules

  

  Spain’s Foreign Affairs minister Jose Garcia Margallo said that Madrid supports negotiations for a free trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union on a “region to region” basis, back stepping from his proposal last April to exclude Argentina following the seizure of YPF from Repsol.

• Thursday, May 17th 2012 - 21:19 UTC

  Tax-info-exchange accord could see middle-class Argentines abandon Uruguayan banks

  

  The recent tax-info exchange agreement reached between Argentina and Uruguay will make many investors in the Uruguayan financial system take their deposits back to “safes” or “mattresses” in Argentina, warned several economists during a conference on the Argentine economy prospects and its influence on neighbouring Uruguay.

• Thursday, May 17th 2012 - 10:41 UTC

  “Highly positive” cruise 2011/12 season for Uruguay with 213 vessel calls

  

  As “highly positive” was described the 2011/12 cruise season by Uruguay’s Deputy Tourism minister Lilian Kechichian during the ceremony in the port of Montevideo to receive the last vessel of the season.

• Thursday, May 17th 2012 - 10:17 UTC

  Argentina en route to become the “Greece of Latin America” claim Chilean exporters

  

  Argentina could rapidly become the “Greece of Latin America” given the trade restrictions it has imposed born out of the lack of sufficient hard currency to face its international commitments, according to Chile’s Manufacturing and Services Exporters Association, Roberto Fantuzzi.