The Argentine government has started to implement additional controls to identify potential cases of coronavirus in flights from Italy, where the number of Covid-19 infections keeps increasing. Additionally, the first case confirmed in South America has been a Brazilian businessman who for work reasons visited the north of Italy.
Argentine ambassador in Washington Jorge Argüello held a meeting on Monday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, with the purpose of strengthening bilateral relations and which was described as “highly productive”.
Argentina agreed to start consultations with the International Monetary Fund that could lead to a new financing program, days after the global lender said the country’s debt situation had become “unsustainable”.
Ambassador Mark Kent said the United Kingdom wants to be a partner of Argentina in such areas as the development of railways, following a meeting of a British trade mission with the head of the country's Railways infrastructure Administration, ADIFSE, Ricardo Lissalde.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday welcomed Argentina's talks with the International Monetary Fund after the heavily indebted country said it would launch consultations, starting Monday, that could lead to a new funding program.
Argentine beef exports to its top buyer China fell almost a third in January due to a price dispute with Chinese importers and the effects of a coronavirus outbreak, the head of the country's meat export chamber revealed.
Argentina's economic activity expanded in December as retail sales and manufacturing advanced, while the country posted a trade surplus in January that almost tripled the surplus the same month a year earlier.
Argentina is thought to be on the brink of falling into its ninth sovereign default, prompting some analysts to speculate whether the crisis-prone South American country might be tempted to accept funding from China.
Recession-hit Argentina's economy shrank by 2.1% in 2019, the state statistics institute said on Friday. The institute said the economy contracted by 0.3% in December compared to the same period in 2018.
Argentina is again putting pressure on Uruguay, this time on the incoming government which takes office next March first, insisting no UK military aircraft linked to the Falkland Islands be allowed to land in the country's airports and Falklands should not be treated as state with which Uruguay has extensive trade and business exchanges.