Argentina's government will raise the floor for income taxes in January, the country's Economy Minister Sergio Massa said on Thursday, amid union demands to ease the burden on workers, Reuters reported. "With this tax relief, in 2023, no worker who earns less than 404,062 pesos (about $2,378 monthly) will pay the tax," Massa said in a tweet. The minister did not disclose the fiscal cost of the decision, which he said is set to benefit some 312,864 workers. The previous floor stood at 330,000 pesos ($1,942.32).
Read more
Industrial production in Brazil rose 0.3% in October from September, government statistics agency IBGE said on Friday, returning to positive territory after two consecutive monthly declines though still below pre-pandemic levels, Reuters reported. Production in October also grew 1.7% from a year earlier, slightly above market consensus of a 1.6% rise.
Read more
Brazil's economic growth slowed more than expected in the third quarter as higher interest rates affected household spending, underscoring challenges facing President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva next year, Reuters reported. Gross domestic product rose 0.4% in the three months to September, government statistics agency IBGE said on Thursday, below the 0.7% growth forecast by economists polled by Reuters. Brazil's central bank have raised borrowing costs to a nearly six-year high to battle double-digit inflation this year, which has begun to weigh on domestic demand.
Read more
Argentina’s central bank expects to keep its key interest rate unchanged at 75% until at least early next year as internal indicators show that monthly inflation is cooling, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank board is seeing slower monthly price gains in November and is preparing to hold its key rate if that forecast is confirmed, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The estimates the central bank tracks suggest monthly inflation could slow to about 5.5% in November, down from 6.3% in October.
Read more
A broad measure of Brazilian consumer and business credit default ratios rose in October to its highest level in almost four years, central bank data showed on Monday, amid high borrowing costs and aggressive monetary tightening, Reuters reported. The default ratio in non-earmarked loans increased to 4.2% from 4.1% in September, the highest since August 2018's 4.22%. At the same time, bank lending spreads were up to 30.3% from 28.6% the month before.
Read more
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.
Read more
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.
Read more
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.