Latin American governments on Sunday selected Brazilian economist Ilan Goldfajn to lead the region’s largest development bank in the wake of a misconduct probe that led to the firing of the previous president, the Associated Press reported. Governors from the Inter-American Development Bank’s 48 members selected Goldfajn to lead the Washington-based multilateral lender from a slate of five candidates nominated by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Trinidad & Tobago.
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South America
Peru's economy expanded by 1.66% in September compared with the same month a year earlier, figures from the national statistics institute (INEI) showed on Tuesday, a slight dip from an increase of 1.68% in August, Reuters reported. INEI said growth in the world's No. 2 copper producer was driven by most sectors of the economy in September, pointing to gains in construction, transportation, hotels and restaurants, commerce, agriculture, power utilities and other services.
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More than 50 of the poorest developing countries are in danger of defaulting on their debt and becoming effectively bankrupt unless the rich world offers urgent assistance, the head of the UN Development Programme has warned, The Guardian reported. Inflation, the energy crisis and rising interest rates are creating conditions where an increasing number of countries are in danger of default, with potentially disastrous impacts on their people, according to Achim Steiner, the UN’s global development chief.
LATAM Airlines Group and the Union of LATAM Pilots (SPL) in Chile reached an agreement on Wednesday, cooling off the possibility of a strike which was set to begin on Thursday, the Union said in a statement, Simple Flying reported. Having recently emerged from its chapter 11 bankruptcy process, LATAM quickly faced a new challenge, the possibility of an industrial action taken by its team of pilots. On Nov. 2, with a 99% overwhelming majority, the pilots in the company voted in favor of a strike.
Latam Airlines and its main pilots’ union in Chile have reached an agreement staving off a threatened strike, the union said in a statement on Wednesday, Reuters reported. The Union of Latam Pilots (SPL), which says it represents 313 of the airline's nearly 500 pilots, voted almost unanimously last week to begin a strike, leaving a window for a mediation process mandated by Chilean law.
LATAM Airlines, South America's largest carrier, reported on Tuesday a narrower third-quarter net loss of $296 million, the company said in a statement, partly hit by high fuel prices, Reuters reported. The Chile-based airline's quarterly loss this year compares to a $694 million loss during the same three-month period last year. LATAM's revenue during the July to September period rose 97% to total $2.587 billion compared to the third quarter last year. The airline, created by the 2012 merger of Chile's LAN with Brazilian rival TAM, operates units in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Peru.
Colombia's civil aviation authority on Tuesday formally opposed a planned merger between Avianca, the country's flag carrier, and budget airline Viva, saying the transaction represented a risk to competition, Reuters reported. Avianca and Viva in April signed a deal to merge into one group and unify their economic rights as part of a strategy to strengthen both airlines after the global aviation industry was battered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The civil aviation authority's decision tentatively blocks the merger, but it said the airlines can appeal.
The largest pilots union of Latam Airlines in Chile voted to strike on Wednesday, a day before the company said it was planning on concluding its exit from bankruptcy, Reuters reported. The Union of Latam Pilots (SPL) said it represents 313 of Latam Airlines's approximately 500 pilots and that 99% of its members voted to approve the strike.
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Argentina's newly struck deal with the Paris Club lenders will bring some $248 million in debt relief for the embattled South American nation and push repayments back as far as 2028, according to a document shared with Reuters by officials. The country's government said earlier on Friday it had reached a deal to restructure the nearly $2 billion it owes the Paris Club of creditors, which counts the United States, Japan and Germany among its members. Repayments would start in December this year and continue until late 2028, the document showed.
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Colombia’s central bank ignored complaints from President Gustavo Petro and raised interest rates to the highest level in more than two decades, while also deciding against intervention in the currency market, Bloomberg News reported. The bank lifted its benchmark rate by one percentage point to 11%, after the peso plunged and foreign investors dumped the nation’s bonds. The unanimous decision, which was in line with expectations, extends the steepest series of interest rate increases since the bank started inflation targeting at the end of the 1990s.
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