Confirming ten years of sustained expansion the Uruguayan economy advanced 2% in the second quarter over the first quarter and 3.7% over the same period a year ago, according to the latest reports from the Central bank.
Uruguay's Central bank confirmed that inflation remains the leading challenge and ratified the current monetary contractive policy with the M1 money supply index converging to 8% from its current 10.4%, in a 'not too distant horizon'.
Uruguay's inflation index experienced a slight deceleration during the twelve months to June, from 9.18% in May to 9.08%, basically because of cheaper fresh food, frozen public utility rates including fuel, while a stabilized exchange rate for the US dollar with a strong Peso, helped with imported goods.
Uruguay's economy expanded 2.4% in the first quarter compared with the same 2013 period, but contracted 0.4% compared with the fourth quarter of last year, the central bank said this week. However deceleration is a fact since growth of the first quarter in 2013 has gone up 4.6% over 2012.
Uruguay issued 2 billion dollars of a new 2050 global bond on Tuesday at a spread of 165 to 170 basis points over U.S. Treasuries as part of the government's bid to put less strain on its accounts in the near- and medium-term, it was reported.
Uruguay and Peru are the first Latin American countries in line for a possible credit rating hike by Moody's Investors Service, at a moment when sovereign upgrades are expected to become more scarce in the region, a senior analyst with the ratings firm said.
Vice-president Danilo Astori confirmed that Uruguay will continue with its current flexible foreign exchange policy, because this has helped us reduce volatilities, but also admitted concern about inflation, the third highest in South America and fourth in Latin-American and the Caribbean.
Uruguay’s inflation in August kept climbing and reached 1.04%, totalling 6.74% in the first eight months of the year and 8.86% in the last twelve months, which is well above the Central bank target of 4% to 6%, according to the latest report from the local Statistics Office, INE.
Consumer prices in Uruguay during July increased 0.77% while twelve-month inflation reached 8.75%, which is the highest since last February, and well ahead of the 8.21% to June, according to the latest release from the country’s National Stats Institute, INE.
Uruguay’s economy expanded 1.2% in the first quarter of the year compared to the last quarter of 2012, which had a poor performance of 0.1%, according to the latest release from the Central Bank. Likewise in the first quarter the economy increased 3.7% over the same period a year ago.