ARGENTINA | Anti-terrorism law. President Cristina Fernández promulgated Law 26,734, the so-called anti-terrorism law, on 28 December. The passage of the law had been requested by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to combat money-laundering and terrorist-financing. However, the extremely vague wording of the article reforming the penal code triggered criticisms from both pro- and anti-government corners, who say the law could be used to criminalise social protests and persecute political opponents.
URUGUAY | Export record. Uruguay smashed its export record in 2011. Exports totalled US$8.02bn, up 18.5% on 2010, according to official figures. It is the second year in a row that Uruguay has broken its previous export record. Once again, however, exports were outstripped by imports, which increased by 23.5% on 2010 to US$8.57bn last year. Brazil is Uruguay’s main trading partner, taking 20.3%, or US$1.63bn, of total exports. China is the second largest recipient of Uruguayan exports, accounting for US$665m, up 78.3% on 2010, ahead of Argentina, with 7.3%, or US$588m. Frozen meat was the biggest single export, amounting to US$979m, 12.2% of the total, followed by soya (10.7%, US$858m) and rice (5.9%, US$475m).
The government of President José Mujica also received a boost last month when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) removed Uruguay from its “grey list” of nations deemed to be taking insufficient action to combat tax evasion. The OECD released a statement saying Uruguay had shown its commitment to meet the international standard by signing seven new bilateral tax accords, most recently with Ecuador, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, although it is yet to sign accords with Brazil or Argentina. The OECD announcement came just weeks after French President Nicolas Sarkozy irked the Mujica administration by including Uruguay in a list of nations he said should be shunned by the international community for being tax havens.
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