President Mauricio Macri unveiled plans on Monday to raise export taxes on grains and slash the number of government ministries in a bid to balance its budget next year, as Argentina seeks a deal with the IMF to accelerate a US$ 50 billion standby loan program.
Brazil's unemployment rate dipped slightly in July, as expected, extending a slow and bumpy labor market recovery as pivotal presidential elections loom.
Argentina’s central bank auctioned a total of US$ 200 million of its reserves in two separate currency auctions on Tuesday after the peso hit new lows, the monetary authority said in a statement.
The Brazilian Real led losses in Latin America as lingering concerns over presidential elections overshadowed a largely positive environment for emerging market assets. The US dollar ended trading at 4.333 Reales.
Argentina’s economy is expected to contract 1% in 2018, but grow by at least 1.5% next year, Minister Nicolas Dujovne told reporters on Monday. Dujovne said the government was maintaining its fiscal deficit target of 2.7% of GDP for full-year 2018. The government also expects a current account deficit of 3% of GDP in 2019, he said.
Latin America's economic growth is set to come in lower than expected this year, as US protectionism and widespread wariness of emerging markets put a drag on the region, a UN panel said Thursday. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) slashed its growth forecast for the region by 0.7 point to 1.5%, saying the complex global scenario had dimmed the outlook since its last report in April.
Chile's gross domestic product grew 5.3% in the second-quarter of 2018 compared with a year earlier, its biggest jump in nearly six years, the central bank said this week.
The Ministry of the Interior of Peru has announced that as of the dawn of next Saturday, August 25, Venezuelans will be required to present their passport to be admitted to the country. This measure coincides with that taken by Ecuador this week when it reached record figures in the entry of Venezuelan citizens in that country. The National Superintendency of Migrations of Peru recorded last Saturday the largest number of Venezuelan citizens who entered the country in a single day: more than 5,100.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Argentina’s government debt to peak by the end of 2018 and then fall as the country cuts its deficit as part of its US$50 billion deal with the Fund, according to a document published.
President Mauricio Macri, First Lady Juliana Awada and members of his cabinet attended on Monday, 9 July, the Argentine Independence Day celebrations in the Tucuman Historic House, where 202 years ago the emerging nation cut all ties as a Spanish colony.