Argentina’s Province of Buenos Aires says it received creditor support to restructure 98% of its $7.1 billion in overseas debt, putting it a step closer to ending a 16-month default, Bloomberg News reported. The province, which is Argentina’s largest and most populous, will swap all of the bonds it had offered to exchange except for dollar-denominated notes due 2021 and euro-denominated bonds due 2020, which had been issued under indentures that required a higher amount of creditor participation, according to a statement. The deal is expected to settle Sept. 3.

Brazil Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said on Monday he agrees with the solution proposed by the president of the Supreme Court, Luiz Fux, for payment of court-awarded debt owed by the government, Reuters reported. The Supreme Court proposed last week that instead of paying the debt in installments, the government make sure the volume of payments does not exceed the budget spending ceiling. The proposal would reduce by around 50 billion reais ($9.6 billion) the total amount the government would have to pay next year.

Paraguay will continue to dial back pandemic stimulus next year as a fast growing economy cushions austerity measures that have proved unpopular in other South American countries, Bloomberg News reported. The government has already reduced temporary pandemic cash transfers to people working in the country’s vast informal sector without triggering social unrest, Finance Minister Oscar Llamosas said in an interview. “The task of adjusting fiscal accounts was largely done this year, and the idea is to continue that in next year’s budget,” Llamosas said.

A majority of Brazil’s Supreme Court justices have voted to uphold the constitutionality of a law granting the central bank formal autonomy, a key piece of legislation considered by investors as a victory for monetary policy making in Latin America’s largest economy, Bloomberg News reported. Eight justices voted in support of the law on Thursday, and two against.

Brazil's Supreme Court will debate on Wednesday whether a law to establish the autonomy of the central bank, insulating it from political interference, is constitutional or not, Reuters reported. The law does not change the way the bank sets interest rates but distances it from politics by setting fixed four-year terms for its governor and directors that will no longer coincide with the presidential election cycle. Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro signed the measure into law in February, but two left-wing parties have questioned whether it violates the country's constitution.

South Africa’s finance industry recorded the largest decrease in employment in the second quarter, pushing the nation’s jobless rate to the highest in the world, Bloomberg News reported. The number of people employed in the finance industry plunged by 278,000 to 2.25 million in the three months through June, Statistics South Africa said in a report released Tuesday in the capital, Pretoria. The official unemployment rate rose to 34.4%, the highest on a global list of 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has begun expressing irritation at the central bank’s newfound autonomy as surging inflation presents a threat to his 2022 reelection prospects, government officials told The Associated Press. On Thursday, during a flight home from Mato Grosso state, Bolsonaro said that he regretted signing the bill into law earlier this year that granted the bank autonomy, a high-level official aboard told the AP.

Brazilian prosecutors asked a bankruptcy court on Wednesday to compel miners Vale SA and BHP Group Ltd to fully pay offtheir Samarco joint venture's 50.7 billion reais ($9.47 billion) debt, according to a court document reviewed by Reuters. Samarco filed for bankruptcy protection in April as it struggled to restructure its debt, which it stopped servicing after a dam burst at a mine in 2015, killing 19 people, releasing a giant torrent of sludge and halting production.

Swiss-Irish food group Aryzta has agreed a new €500 million revolving credit facility with three banks and has announced the disposal of its Brazilian businesses, the Irish Times reported. No financial details have been disclosed on the sale of the Brazilian subsidiaries to Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV. The transaction is expected to close shortly. Aryzta said the new credit facility, which is expected to be used by early October, is underwritten by Credit Suisse, Rabobank and UBS. It replaces the group’s current €800 million facility, which maters in September 2022.

Chile’s economy beat expectations in the second quarter as billions of dollars in fiscal stimulus triggered a retail sales frenzy during the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. Gross domestic product grew 1% from the first quarter, more than the 0.7% median estimate from analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The economy expanded 18.1% from a year prior, the central bank reported on Wednesday.