LatinNews Regional Monitor: Brazil & Southern Cone - 14 May 2018

Development: A 25-year-old motorcyclist, Diego Augusto Ferreira, was gunned down on 12 May by a member of Brazil’s armed forces during a raid in the Vila Militar favela, in western zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro.... Read More

*Brazil’ss supreme electoral court (TSE) will allow candidates in the October general election to start crowdfunding for their electoral campaigns from tomorrow (15 May).... Read More

Development: On 12 May Argentina’s cabinet chief, Marcos Peña, insisted that the decision by the government led by President Mauricio Macri to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance was “not because of a crisis but to avoid one”.... Read More

Chile: Chile’s finance minister, Felipe Larraín, has said that he believes that economic activity in the county may have increased by as much as 5% in April, higher than the 4% increase recorded by the central bank (BCCh) in its monthly economic activity index (Imacec), a GDP proxy measure, in March.... Read More

During the decade of the commodity boom (roughly the ten years to 2012) the governments of Argentina and Brazil (the two dominant members of the Mercosur trade bloc, whose other members are Paraguay and Uruguay [and Venezuela – suspended since 2016]) neglected the customs union and bickered between themselves over protective tariffs.... Read More

President Michel Temer, along with other centrist would-be candidates in Brazil’s October elections, have always worked with a key hypothesis: if the market-friendly policies pursued since 2016 can deliver an economic recovery, the electorate is likely to shun political extremes and vote for more of the same.... Read More

The Paraguayan economy has been growing at a strong average rate of around 6% from 2013-2017.... Read More

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As this issue went to press Argentina was putting together emergency financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after a run on the peso forced the Banco Central de la República Argentina (BCRA) to tighten interest rates, at the risk of derailing the government’s economic recovery programme.... Read More

In line with other large commodity producers, Chile is feeling the benefit of rising global prices on its local economy.... Read More

Kroton expands again: Kroton, Brazil’s largest private education company, said in April that it had acquired a controlling stake in Somos Educação, a group focused on the pre-school, primary, and secondary education segments.... Read More