Brazil & Southern Cone - January 2026

ARGENTINA | US swap line repaid. The central bank (BCRA) announced on 9 January that it has repaid the US$20bn currency swap line that Argentina secured with the US in October. In a statement, the BCRA said the swap line, which helped to prop up Argentina’s economy ahead of key mid-term elections, was paid off in December. In a post on social media, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent stated that Argentina had “quickly and fully repaid its limited draw on the swap facility with the United States, such that the Exchange Stabilization Fund currently does not hold any pesos”. He said this reflected Argentina’s “strengthened financial position” and that the agreement had worked as intended: “to stabilize Argentina in its crisis moment of acute, short-term, and urgent illiquidity pressure on both exchange rate and financial stability”. Bessent added that Argentina was “a strong American ally” and that “a strong and stable Argentina that helps anchor a prosperous Western Hemisphere is in our clear best interest”. He praised President Javier Milei and noted that Argentina had successfully re-accessed financial markets and made “encouraging changes” to its monetary and exchange rate policy framework.

BRAZIL | Record international tourism in 2025. The tourism ministry has released new figures on 6 January that 9.2m international tourists visited Brazil in 2025, which is an annual record. It marks a 37.1% increase compared to 2024 and easily surpasses the government’s forecast of 6.9m international visitors for 2025. A total of 3.4m Argentine nationals and 801,921 Chileans visited Brazil last year. Tourists from the US totalled 759,637, while there were 1.3m tourists from European countries such as France, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. The top three states for international tourist arrivals were São Paulo with 2.8m visitors, Rio de Janeiro with 2.2m, and Rio Grande do Sul with 1.5m.

Brazil & Southern Cone: inflation rate
Percentage variation (year-on-year)

Brazil & Southern Cone: GDP growth (%)
Quarterly figures are year-on-year growth