Millions of pounds of provisions, stuffed into three-dozen 747 cargo planes, arrived here from countries around the world in recent months to service Venezuela’s crippled economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. But instead of food and medicine, the planes carried another resource that often runs scarce here: bills of Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar.

Embattled Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called on Congress to approve a new tax on financial transactions and other potentially unpopular bills to balance the nation’s finances and reverse a deep recession, The Wall Street Journal reported. Ms. Rousseff, who is being targeted for impeachment by the lower house, addressed the congress in the legislative year’s opening ceremony for the first time since 2011, a sign of the high stakes for her administration. “Growth requires fiscal stability,” she said at the opening ceremony.

Argentina made its first agreement with a group of “holdout” creditors that rejected debt restructurings after the 2001 default on Tuesday, moving a step closer to regaining unfettered access to international capital markets, the Financial Times reported. The new government of President Mauricio Macri, who has vowed to normalise relations with the rest of the world, will pay a group of Italian bondholders $1.35bn in cash. That represents 150 per cent of the value of the $900m in bonds that Argentina defaulted on 15 years ago.

Brookfield Asset Management Inc has withdrawn an offer to buy the 24.4 percent stake in infrastructure company Invepar held by Brazil's Grupo OAS SA because Brookfield would not have full management control of the company, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation said on Monday, Reuters reported. Brookfield failed to reach an agreement with OAS's partners in Invepar, pension funds Previ, Petros and Funcef, over management control of the firm, said the sources, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

A Brazilian bankruptcy court upheld a restructuring plan for embattled engineering conglomerate Grupo OAS, paving the way for a slew of asset sales aimed at helping pay over 8 billion reais ($2 billion) in liabilities. In a Thursday statement, the São Paulo-based group said that bankruptcy judge Daniel Carnio Costa gave his approval to the plan, which had previously been voted by an assembly of creditors in December. Under the plan, creditors will take an 80 percent loss on their debt and accept repayment for as many as 25 years.

Debt restructuring firms are poised to pull in record amounts of business in Brazil this year as the country's worst recession in decades and a corruption probe that has cast a shadow over dozens of companies leads to a surge in defaults, Reuters reported in an insight. While a slump in prices is squeezing commodities producers - from sugar mills to oil producers and miners - the "Operation Car Wash" investigation into political kickbacks at state oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA is also hitting many of its suppliers.

Brazil's Mines and Energy Ministry said on Friday it held talks this month with various investors in the transmission line and wind sectors to feel out potential interest in taking over local projects abandoned by Spain's financially distressed Abengoa SA, Reuters reported. The ministry told Reuters it had met with executives from local and international energy firms including Spain's Cymimasa and Elecnor, China State Grid and Brazil's Engevix and Alupar. It also met with wind investors from Italy's Enel Green Power and local firm Casa dos Ventos.

Venezuela’s opposition-controlled congress on Friday rejected an economic emergency decree proposed by President Nicolás Maduro to confront the deepest recession in the country’s history, the first time the body has moved against the government in 17 years of populist rule, The Wall Street Journal reported. The opposition legislators said that Mr. Maduro’s decree was vague and was designed to put more power into his hands without addressing Venezuela’s calamitous economy, which the International Monetary Fund says will contract by 8% this year.

The plunge in the price of oil is causing more investors to bet that Venezuela will default on its $120 billion pile of foreign debt, an event that would trigger a messy battle over the country’s oil shipments and deepen its economic and political crisis, The Wall Street Journal reported. Despite Venezuela’s worst economic slump since independence from Spain, the socialist government has continued to pay bondholders on time. President Nicolás Maduro this week reiterated the country’s intention to honor its debt. Few investors doubt Venezuela’s willingness to pay.

Emerging market borrowing costs hit their highest level in five years on Wednesday with investors warning that the developing world faces a debilitating credit crunch, the Financial Times reported. Selling pressure is being fanned by weakening local currencies, leaving borrowers of dollar-denominated debt, including Brazil and South Africa, facing sharply higher interest costs. Amid a wider slide in global stock prices, investor flight from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America led one investor to dub the day “Black Wednesday” for emerging markets.