Several Caribbean states and Nicaragua announced this weakened they will bar from their ports any vessel flying the Malvinas flag, according to a release from the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Uruguay's inflation rate rose in January 0.74% from December as housing, hotel and restaurant prices jumped, the national statistics agency, INE, reported this week. The consumer price index rose 8.05% on the year at the end of January, INE said.
Britain warned Argentina against cutting off an air link to the Falklands as part of an economic blockade of the Islands, reports the Evening Standard. Buenos Aires is threatening to stop a weekly flight from Punta Arenas in Chile to Port Stanley by refusing permission for it to use Argentine airspace.
Argentina’s controversial new import restrictions came into effect on Wednesday as part of the legislation on the trading sector which gives the government bureaucracy more powers to control and restrict imports.
The Uruguayan industrial sector warned that certain members of the Mercosur “are failing to fulfil their obligations” and targeted Argentina directly by pointing out that the new trade regulations set by the local Government “are hurting production” in the neighbouring country.
Uruguay’s ruling catch-all coalition, Broad Front, has a 44% support well ahead of any of the two main opposition parties, according to the latest public opinion poll released in Montevideo by Equipos Mori.
Wood chip exports from Latin America are on track to reach a record high of almost eight million tons in 2011, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly. This would be an increase of 7% from last year and of almost 60% higher than in 2006.
Uruguay's President José Mujica said that Mercosur bloc is stalled and has no natural institutional operation to push other countries to express their willingness to enter it plus lacking the fluidity of a natural relationship.
HMS Protector, the Royal Navy's new ice patrol ship, has arrived in Antarctica for the first time after her long sail south from Portsmouth. Her arrival, via Montevideo in Uruguay, coincided with the centenary of the Royal Navy's Captain Scott reaching the South Pole.
Finance Minister Fernando Lorenzo said that Uruguay’s economy in 2011 expanded an estimated 6%, the ninth year running of sustained growth, and the budget fiscal deficit was 0.8% of GDP.