Mercosur

• Thursday, December 7th 2017 - 09:01 UTC

  Mercosur and EU confident a framework agreement will be announced this month

  

  Mercosur is confident a framework agreement with the European Union will be announced next week despite resistance from farmers in Europe to permit tariff-free beef imports, a Mercosur official said. “There is more than a 70% chance of reaching a deal,” said the official close to the negotiations that have dragged on for almost two decades.

• Friday, December 1st 2017 - 18:38 UTC

  Brazilian crucial pension reform bill needs 308 votes, but is still 46 short

  

  Brazil’s lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia said on Monday he will try to pass a fiscally crucial pension reform bill this year in the chamber, but he told reporters he would only put the measure to the vote if it has enough support.

• Monday, November 27th 2017 - 06:54 UTC

  New round of EU/Mercosur talks in Brussels: agriculture main concern for France, Ireland, and Poland

  

  Brussels will seek to drive forward negotiations on a far-reaching trade deal with Mercosur this week despite warnings from France and other EU members that they are reaching the limit of the concessions they can tolerate on beef and other sensitive agricultural products, according to a report from the Financial Times.

• Friday, November 24th 2017 - 17:55 UTC

  Buenos Aires City generates half of Argentina's travel and tourism GDP

  

  Buenos Aires generates over a half of Argentina´s Travel & Tourism GDP, revealed a new report by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), Latin America City Travel & Tourism Impact. Latin America City Travel & Tourism Impact is one of a series of reports by WTTC which looks at the contribution of Travel & Tourism to city economies and job creation. The study covers 65 cities, six of which are in Latin America.

• Thursday, November 16th 2017 - 19:09 UTC

  Petrobras shares plunge after disappointing third quarter earnings

  

  Shares of Brazil’s Petrobras plunged 7.8% on Tuesday a day after the state-controlled oil company reported disappointing third-quarter earnings. The company also announced that during October oil production remained stable but gas was down 1.5%

• Thursday, November 16th 2017 - 19:01 UTC

  October inflation in Argentina reaches 1.5% and 19,4% in ten months

  

  Argentina’s consumer prices rose 1.5% in October, government statistics agency Indec said on Tuesday, bringing 10-month inflation to 19.4%. It was the second month in a row that cumulative inflation for 2017 was above the upper band of the central bank’s target range for inflation, between 12% and 17% this year. Private sector economists expect inflation of 23% this year and 16% in 2018.

• Monday, November 13th 2017 - 08:43 UTC

  EU and Mercosur “very close” to reaching an accord, says top European official

  

  The European Union and Mercosur are close to concluding a free trade accord after decades of fitful talks, an EU official said. “We’re that close to having a new association and trade agreement between EU and Mercosur,” European Commissioner for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness Jyrki Katainen said, holding his index finger and thumb just slightly apart.

• Friday, November 10th 2017 - 01:02 UTC

  Argentine inflation forecasted to end at 21% this year and 14.3% in 2018

  

  Argentina's annual core inflation forecast for the end of 2017 rose by 0.7 percentage point (pp) in November to 21%, according to a monthly survey conducted by the Argentine central bank. For 2018, analysts estimated a 14.3% annual inflation, from 14% in the previous survey.

• Friday, November 10th 2017 - 00:50 UTC

  No end to violent deaths in Brazil: seven people killed every sixty minutes in 2016

  

  The number of violent deaths registered during 2016 in Brazil reached 61,600, a 4.7% increase compared to the previous year. This works out to seven people murdered per hour, on average, throughout the country, according to data from the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety released this week.

• Wednesday, November 8th 2017 - 12:26 UTC

  Irish “grave concerns” about the beef industry with the EU/Mercosur trade deal

  

  Ireland's Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has expressed “grave concerns” about the offer of a beef tariff rate quota in last month’s round of European Union/Mercosur discussions, which he said gives rise to potentially very serious consequences for the Irish and EU beef sector in particular.