The number of tourists arriving in Uruguay this summer season has erupted into an open controversy between the government and tourism operators who question the official stats release of the first fifteen days of January.
The leading residential seaside resort in Uruguay which has made the reviews of some of the most significant world magazines because of its village spirit, excellent beaches and easy going environment but also with some of the best restaurants and art galleries in the country is threatened by speculators.
“In practical terms Venezuela if fully integrated to Mercosur” said Uruguayan Foreign Affairs minister Luis Almagro during a meeting this week with foreign correspondents.
Uruguayan Foreign Minister Luis Almagro said that the trade balance between Uruguay and Argentina is “definitely positive” although admitting some manufacturing sectors face difficulties because of the current Argentine obstructions to imports.
The Economy ministers from Colombia, Uruguay and Peru have been rated as the best in Latin America according to the financial magazine America Economica, a publication from the Chilean company Nanbei which does the annual survey based on interviews with 70 Latin American economists.
Uruguayan president Jose Mujica and former leader Lula da Silva, under treatment for larynx cancer, said in Sao Paulo on Tuesday that they would like to have a group of Latin American intellectuals involved in the discussion and promotion of regional integration as a doctrine.
The landless peasants’ movement has reached Uruguay: the self called “shaggy” ones with eighty families, have taken over a 400 hectares farm in the extreme north of the country Artigas, and have been occupying the land since.
Uruguay beef exports last year dropped 8% in volume but soared 18% in value because of higher international prices and fewer cattle. However the volume was the lowest since 2004 and confirms a decreasing tendency since 2006, according to the latest figures released by the government.
The British government said it would resist any attempts to coerce the Falkland Islands through economic or other pressures, and revealed it is holding ‘productive discussions’ with Uruguay, Chile and Brazil to ensure trade and commercial links between the Islands and South America are not compromised by political declarations.
Chilean president Sebastián Piñera will be flying to Antarctic next 13 to 15 January together with his Uruguayan peer Jose Mujica, announced on Wednesday Chile’s Foreign Affairs minister Alfredo Moreno.