Thousands of Panamanians took to the streets over the past few days to protest against the seemingly unstoppable inflation and Government corruption, while measures offered by the administration of President Laurentino Cortizo regarding the price of fuel and food were deemed insufficient.
Venezuelan Finance minister Rodolfo Marco Torre announced that ”soon there will be important announcements on the issue of gasoline”, underlining that “a piece of candy cannot cost more than a liter of gasoline”.
Despite Labor Day to honor workers, May begins with bad news for Argentine consumers: fare increases for trains and domestic flights tickets and rises on cigarettes and gasoline prices ranging from 4% to 100% in the case of train tariffs.
President Nicolas Maduro said he was contemplating a three-year period to raise domestic fuel prices; a sensitive issue for Venezuela where a similar move helped spark deadly 1989 riots.
Brazil’s Petrobras shares surged in Wednesday trading after the company surprised investors with a 5% increase in domestic diesel wholesale prices. The latest increase helps offset investor disappointment with January's lower-than-expected jump in gasoline and diesel prices, which had pushed Petrobras's shares to a seven-year low in recent sessions.
US consumers prices fell in November due to a sharp drop in petrol prices, according to official figures, as inflation in the economy remained weak. The consumer price index fell 0.3% from October, the first decline since May, the US Labour Department said.
Brazil's state managed oil company Petrobras said it will raise gasoline and diesel prices for the first time since 2008, a move aimed at ending refining losses and paying for the world's largest corporate spending plan.
China, the world's second-biggest oil user, will reduce gasoline and diesel prices by the most since 2008 after global crude costs slumped. State-controlled retail gasoline prices will fall by 530 Yuan (83 dollars) a metric ton and diesel will be cut by 510 Yuan, the National Development and Reform Commission, NDRC, the nation's top economic planner, said on its website last week.