201901.02
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TLA Times | January 02, 2019

in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, TLA News

SNAPSHOT

Annual percentage GDP growth in Argentina.

 

 

 

 

Source: data.worldbank.org

EXCHANGE RATE
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figures from Dec. 21 Source:www.xe.com

FUN IN THE SUN

Guatemala resort offers  beauty of coffee country.
  
La Antigua’s Fildelfia Resort is right in the heart of Guatemala’s coffee country. The resort offers an exhilarating and educational tour of a coffee plantation and a wet mill. Once you get some of that caffeine in your system, you can work off all that energy playing paintball in the mountain with biodegradable paintballs. The resort also offers bird watching, camping and mountain biking. Details
BRAZIL

Judge who was overruled on appeal holds up Boeing-Embraer deal again.

Judge Victorio Guizio Neto granted a request of Brazilian unions to hold up a deal between Boeing and Brazil’s Embraer, AFP reports via Yahoo News. Neto made a similar ruling two weeks earlier and was overturned on appeal four days later. The $5.26 billion deal would give Boeing an 80 percent stake in Embraer’s commercial business but would allow the Brazilian company to make and sell smaller planes, a market segment where Boeing does not compete.  Embraer’s military business is not part of the deal. Embraer was originally a state-owned company, and the government still can veto major decisions by the company. Details

PARAGUAY

Nation’s pitch to foreign investors: We’re more stable than other guys. 

Bloomberg Quint reports that the central bank chairman Jose Cantero is emphasizing Paraguay’s stability to investors. Paraguay’s annual inflation rate is a relatively low 4 percent.  Meanwhile larger neighbors Brazil and Argentina have struggled at times in recent years. “Our communication strategy probably has to be more prompt in the sense of helping these big multinationals understand that Paraguay is different,” Cantero says. Details

CHILE

Government wants all public transportation to be electric by 2050.

Business Day reports that Chile’s recent debut of electric buses from China is just the first step of a plan to phase out the internal combustion engine. Chile hopes that all public transportation is electric by 2050 – and 40 percent of private vehicles as well. Santiago, the capital of Chile, has a notorious smog problem. The country also has impressive lithium reserves, a vital ingredient for the batteries that are vital to electric vehicles. Details

MEXICO

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador plans to use army for urban development.

Mexico’s new president revealed plans for the military to develop an urban project in Mexico City, cutting out private developers, Reuters reports. “It’s not going to be a private real estate company, it’s not a private business,’’ President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told a news conference. “It’s the government itself, in this case the secretary of defense, that’s going to carry out the urbanization.” The leftist president has been critical of past government practices that he said benefitted elites. Details

Mexico doubling minimum wage near the United States border.

The Mexican government announced it is raising the minimum wage by 16 percent throughout the country and doubling it in the area near the United States border, the Associated Press reports via Fox Business. The current minimum wage is about $4.40 per day and will go up to $5.10 per day. Because the cost of living is higher near the northern border, the minimum wage will go up about $8.80 per day. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says the higher wages near the border will serve as a buffer against emigration.  Details