The central bank’s monetary policy committee (Copom) cut the benchmark Selic interest rate by a full 75 basis points (bps) this week, taking it down to single digits (9.75%) for the first time since 2009. In a curt one-line statement, the Copom revealed that the larger-than-expected cut was not unanimous, with five votes in favour and two in favour of a smaller (50 bps) cut. The Copom took the opportunity to act more forcefully in support of domestic economic growth after the national statistics institute (Ibge) this week reported a weak real annual GDP growth rate of just 2.7% for…

ARGENTINA-URUGUAY | Marital problems. Uruguay’s President José Mujica is becoming more and more publicly disillusioned with the trading bloc Mercosur. Exports to Argentina fell almost by half in February year-on-year as a result of the restrictions imposed by Argentina on imports through a licensing scheme, Uruguay’s union of exporters reported. Exports fell by 47% from US$46.54m to US$24.85m. Mainly food and textile sectors were affected.    Mujica, who has consistently stressed that exports are not the most important thing on the bilateral agenda – tourism and property being the top two priorities – stressed that this was nonetheless “very worrying”. Mujica…

The style and substance of the speech President José Mujica delivered to open the new congressional session in Uruguay could hardly have been more different to that of his Argentine peer Cristina Fernández. Fernández spoke for three hours and 17 minutes in congress; Mujica, for 10 minutes and 19 seconds by radio and television broadcast. While Fernández indulged in lengthy praise of her government’s performance, Mujica acknowledged that much more needed to be done, and promised that this was the year to do it: he wants to move on education, security, infrastructure, and State reform - “the mother of all…

President Cristina Fernández broke many records last week during her delivery of the constitutionally mandated state-of-the-nation address to open congress. Fernández’s speech, which lasted three hours and 17 minutes and contained 23,280 words, was the longest since the return to democracy in 1983. More people tuned in to see the speech than for the most-viewed television show in the country on the day. The speech contained a couple of surprise announcements and one omission; but, unlike any other state-of-the-nation address, some of the president’s comments were deemed so offensive by the teachers’ unions that they have been widely perceived as…