Information about international economic affairs that can impact the Argentinian economy.
Crude oil prices fell sharply on Monday, with the international benchmark Brent losing $1.99 to $22.94 a barrel, a 7.98% drop. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil in the United States dropped 96 cents to $20.55, 4.46%.
Files discovered in Argentina reveal the names of 12,000 Nazis who lived there in the 1930s and many had Swiss bank accounts, researchers say. The US-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, famous for tracking down Nazis, has asked Credit Suisse to identify the dormant bank accounts.
Latin American e-commerce giant Mercado Libre will invest $420 million in Mexico in 2020, as part of its continuing battle with Amazon.com to gain a larger slice of the country’s lucrative online retailing market. The online retailer, which is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has invested more than $1 billion in expansion efforts in Mexico since 2017 to compete with other online retailers.
The US Export-Import Bank (US Exim) has backed the export of oil and gas services equipment from the United States to Argentina with seven-year guarantee. The guarantee covers an $18.4mn loan from HSBC to A-Evangelista S.A. (AESA), a wholly-owned subsidiary of energy company YPF. The Argentinian engineering firm will use the financing to buy oil and gas services equipment from three small US-based businesses.
As Argentina descends into a hellscape for creditors, investors are finding opportunities in some provincial and municipal notes selling at small discounts to their face value and spitting out rich coupons in a world of near-zero yields. Local governments owe $1.5 billion in debt obligations in 2020. “But the financial woes forcing the federal government to seek a restructuring don’t apply equally to all the country’s issuers,” Oren Barack, the managing director of fixed income at New York-based AGP Alliance Global Partners says.
U.S. soybean futures on Wednesday extended a rebound from a sharp drop earlier this week after the Argentine Ministry of Agriculture suspended the registration of agricultural exports until further notice. The movement was seen as foreshadowing a jump from 30% to 33% in grain export tariffs that Alberto Fernández’s government might announce this weekend, thus shifting exports to the United States.
French oil giant Total is interested in partnering with Russian companies to jointly develop petrochemical projects in southern Argentina, Sergey Derkach, the trade representative of Russia in Argentina said. Earlier this month he met with the management of Total Austral, an Argentina-based subsidiary in the southern Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego where local authorities are currently assessing the number of projects in the oil and gas sector, including expanding natural gas production and creating a petrochemical cluster for making fertilisers.
Argentina imports of textile products in 2019 fell 20.9% in dollars and 10.3% in kilograms compared to the previous year, according to a report by the Pro Tejer Foundation. China concentrated 40.8% of purchases in dollars and 41% in tons, followed by Brazil (18.3% in dollars and 17.6% in tons); India (6.3% in dollars and 12.7% in tons); Indonesia (2.7% in dollars and 4.9% in tons); and Korea (1.4% in dollars and 2.6% in tons). Argentine exports of textile products decreased 40.1% in tons and 25.8% in dollars.
UK ambassador to Buenos Aires Mark Kent said his country wants “to be a partner” of Argentina in such areas as the development of railways. His comments followed a meeting of a British trade mission with the head of the State Railway Infrastructure Administration (ADIFSE), Ricardo Lissalde, in which they presented projects for railway development, including a train to Vaca Muerta oil shale.
Argentine beef exports to its top buyer China fell almost a third in January compared to previous month, due to buyers bargaining for lower price, and the effects of a coronavirus outbreak, according to Mario Ravettino, head of the consortium of Argentine meat exporters (ABC). The estimated January figure of 31,500 tonnes would be the lowest in nine months. Soaring demand from China last year saw sales of Argentine frozen boneless beef double to 408,500 tonnes, worth around $2 billion.
