South America

Brazilian officials are pushing conservative policies that President Dilma Rousseff recently criticized as a threat to the poor, amid investors’ calls to shore up her government’s credibility and avoid a credit-rating downgrade, The Wall Street Journal reported. Members of Ms. Rousseff’s newly appointed economic team are signaling that they are considering unpopular measures such as tax increases and spending cuts, which the Brazilian leader adamantly opposed during her recent re-election campaign. Her administration has also cut to 0.8% from 3% Brazil’s 2015 growth forecast.

Interest rates in Brazil would make an American loan shark blush. Credit cards charge more than 240 percent a year. Bank loans top 100 percent, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. For a rising number of consumers in need of cash, a pawnshop is actually the better option. When Angela Pereira, a stay-at-home mother in São Paulo, needed extra money to buy her daughter school supplies, she pawned a gold chain to get 530 reais, or about $210.

Brazil clawed out of recession in the third quarter on the back of government spending, but the outlook for Latin America’s biggest economy remains clouded by weak investment, wary consumers and rising interest rates, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, expanded 0.1 percent in the third quarter on a seasonally adjusted basis from the previous three months, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, or IBGE, said on Friday.

South America’s most economically troubled country, facing fears of a debt default amid tumbling oil prices and a cash crunch, has been thrown a lifeline by its largest lender, China, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Asian giant loosened repayment terms on the nearly $50 billion in loans it has granted Venezuela since 2007, according to Venezuela’s Official Gazette. And President Nicolás Maduro said in a speech last week that his finance minister, Rodolfo Marco, would soon travel to China to try to secure new loans. Mr.

South America’s most economically troubled country, facing fears of a debt default amid tumbling oil prices and a cash crunch, has been thrown a lifeline by its largest lender, China, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Asian giant loosened repayment terms on the nearly $50 billion in loans it has granted Venezuela since 2007, according to Venezuela’s Official Gazette. And President Nicolás Maduro said in a speech last week that his finance minister, Rodolfo Marco, would soon travel to China to try to secure new loans. Mr.

Industrias Metalurgicas Pescarmona SA, the Argentine wind-turbine maker owned by the Pescarmona family and known as Impsa, agreed to sell holdings in wind parks in Brazil to a local developer as it prepares to restructure its debt, Bloomberg News reported. Ventos de Sao Jorge Energias Renovaveis SA, a Fortaleza, Brazil-based wind-power developer owned by the Salus investment fund, agreed to buy stakes in five wind farms from Impsa-run Energimp SA, according to a filing to Brazil’s antitrust regulator. The price wasn’t disclosed.

Creditors who own bonds left over from Argentina’s default in 2001 are growing increasingly confident the government will negotiate once a clause that it says prevents a settlement expires next month, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The dollar-denominated notes rose as high as 120 cents on the dollar, according to prices compiled by Exotix USA Inc., which specializes in illiquid and distressed emerging-market debt. That’s the highest since July 30, when Argentina defaulted on securities issued in debt restructurings in 2005 and 2010.

Brazil’s next finance minister, to be appointed within weeks, must wrestle with a growing government problem: not enough money, The Wall Street Journal reported. Shoring up Brazil’s books is crucial for the nation to avoid a potential credit rating downgrade, which would increase its costs of borrowing. But there are short-term economic pitfalls as well as political challenges for President Dilma Rousseff , who faces a more conservative and divided Congress than she did in her first term. Among her first tasks is avoiding Brazil’s version of the fiscal cliff.

Argentina's debt default spread to its Par bonds on Friday after the country failed to complete an interest payment, raising the risk that creditors could demand that the country's cash-strapped government immediately repay all of its debt. Argentina deposited a $161 million payment with a newly appointed local trustee last month to try to circumvent U.S. court orders for it to settle with "holdout" investors. The holdouts are suing to get full repayment of bonds from a 2002 default before holders that accepted the terms of a debt restructuring get paid by the government.

Argentina’s central bank tapped a currency swap line with its Chinese counterpart for the first time Thursday, requesting the equivalent of about $814 million at a time when its hard currency reserves are under pressure, The Wall Street Journal reported. Argentina and China agreed to the 70 billion yuan currency swap during a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping in July. Argentine officials say the agreement will make it easier for Chinese companies to invest in Argentina and strengthen the central bank’s depleted reserves.