
Brazil will request at least 100 additional exceptions from Mercosur common external tariff, TEC, as part of the program to prop local industry that was announced earlier this week and includes tax relief to the tune of 16 billion dollars.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, CFK, underlined the importance of dialogue between Argentina and Uruguay which enable to overcome ‘conflicts’, while her Uruguayan peer Jose Mujica said that the “good neighbours” policy is the only way forward and a win-win situation for both sides.

South America’s top economic and monetary authorities will be meeting in Lima and later in Buenos Aires to agree on “joint and specific actions” to address the flush of global liquidity distorting regional currencies and of unsold manufactured goods threatening jobs and industry.

Argentina and Brazil reaffirmed on Friday their strategic alliance and commitment to Mercosur and regional integration during a summit in Brasilia, where President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner together with her Brazilian peer Dilma Rousseff inaugurated the new Argentine Embassy in the Brazilian capital.

Brazilian newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo revealed documents from Chinese company Sun Falcon International Inc. offering triangulation scheme through Los Angeles port, the busiest container port in the US, to avoid Brazilian anti-dumping tariffs.

Brazilian Foreign Affairs minister Antonio Patriota said that trade talks is one of several points in the bilateral agenda, ‘but not the most important’, next Friday when Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner visits her Brazilian peer Dilma Rousseff.

The credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s upgraded on Monday Uruguay’s rating by one notch to BB-plus, only one notch below investment grade, praising years of “prudent and consistent” economic policies in the country.

A trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union would significantly expand European investment given the increase in bilateral trade, but ‘there’s too much fear from both sides’, according to Adrian van den Hover head of international relations for Business Europe.

The Spanish government's enthusiasm for an European Union free-trade agreement with Mercosur remains solid and Madrid seems willing to put some sectors of agriculture at risk in exchange for access to new markets for the country's multinationals.

Following on an 8.5% growth rate in 2010, Uruguay’s real GDP continued to expand 6.8% in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period of 2010, according to the Central bank Debt Management Unit.