U.S. online and mobile ticket provider Fandango recently purchased Rio de Janeiro-based Ingresso.com in order to establish a presence in the region. Yanover's comments follow Fandango's recent purchase of Ingresso.com for an undisclosed price. Initially, Ingresso.com was an entertainment ticketing subsidiary of Latin American-based e-commerce company B2W Companhia Digital. Read More »

If initiatives in Brazil toward an impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff succeed, the country would enter an “uncharted territory,” Shelly Shetty, the primary analyst for Brazil at Fitch Ratings, said today during a teleconference to discuss a rating downgrade. There are “considerable uncertainties regarding the impeachment and the feasibility of the impeachment.” Read More »

Latin America lacks a “bio-economy” strategy although there are some important advances, a United Nations representative recently told Latin Business Daily. Brazil, which has made advances in biofuels, and Argentina, with its crop improvements, stand out, Adrian Rodriguez, of the Agricultural Development area at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, said.  Read More »

Spanish-language newspapers in the U.S. are going through a rich period and have an even better outlook though challenges remain, Reinaldo Escobar, a Colombian-born journalist and owner of The Spanish Times in Utah, recently told Latin Business Daily. The importance of Spanish-language media has grown along with the U.S. Hispanic community's political importance, Escobar said. Read More »

Venezuelans Andreina Urriola and Melissa Magill launched Geobici, an environmentally friendly bicycle delivery service in Lima, Peru, and have witnessed aggressive growth in seven months. Geobici was launched on March 1 with three cyclists making deliveries for just one restaurant four hours per day. Now, Geobici has 15 fixed clients with 13 cyclists making deliveries all day. Read More »

The most recent wealth report published by Credit Suisse said Latin American household wealth declined 17.1 percent between mid-2014 and mid-2015, making it the region with the steepest wealth drop. Read More »

Latin American executives still fail to understand the importance of “reputational risk” in social media in a region with 340 million Internet users, communications expert and writer Alberto Arebalos told Latin Business Daily. Read More »

Companies in Latin America, including multinationals with a regional presence, do more to fight poverty than governments, Techo, an organization with a $35 million annual budget that has mobilized 800,000 volunteers since it was founded  to help the Latin American poor, said. Read More »

The Colombian antitrust authority recently sanctioned Colombian sugar companies and industry groups after finding them guilty of creating a cartel to block imports of sugar from other regional countries. Read More »

Brazilian vehicle sales, which have steadily declined in recent years, are projected to stabilize in the last quarter of the year, the country´s vehicle manufacturer association projected. While Anfavea, a Portuguese-language acronym for National Association of Automotive Vehicle Manufacturers, says numbers will remain low but not worsen, some dealerships expect improvement. Read More »

The government of Venezuela, which for the past month has sought to intensify an initiative to increase crude oil prices by limiting production, said on Thursday that it will host a meeting on Oct. 21 in Caracas and is inviting all oil-producing countries, both inside and outside of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, to participate. Read More »

At the second meeting of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Mexico, the effects of an aging population, maternal mortality, migration and more on Latin America and the Caribbean were discussed on Wednesday. In particular, hot button issues covered the new changes in population and maternal and infant mortality. The conference is from Oct. 6 to Oct. 9. Read More »

The four years of economic deceleration in Latin America are already affecting Latin Americans' capacity to find or hold onto jobs as well as their income, according to Augusto de la Torre, chief economist of the World Bank for Latin America and the Caribbean; while the region has already been posting worse-than-projected results for as many as five years, the job markets had remained for the most part unaffected in past years.  Read More »

Undaunted by an economic slowdown in Latin America, G6 Hospitality, a U.S.-owned chain of hotels that owns the Motel 6 and Studio 6 brands, believes that this may actually help its expansion south of the border as there could be a search for value; G6 Hospitality, already present in 1,200 locations across the U.S. and Canada, is carrying out efforts to expand to Latin America following a decision in late 2013 that began to be fully implemented last year. Read More »

Following the announcement Monday in Atlanta that the United States, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim countries have reached an accord for the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), the governments of Chile, Peru and Mexico, the three Latin American nations that are participating in the trade agreement, hailed the accord amid some local opposition and demands for transparency. Read More »

Brazilian state oil company Petrobras slashed its projected investments and operating expenses while keeping its projection for disinvestment and its production target unchanged. Petrobras made an adjustment to its 2015 and 2016 financial planning “given new Brent crude oil prices and the exchange rate” changes that have depreciated the Brazilian real currency against the U.S. dollar. Read More »

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has announced the creation of the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park, which added to other existing areas, will create one the world´s largest marine sanctuaries. The marine sanctuary in the Desventuradas is on the migration path of large marine mammals. Also included in the protected area are a number of places that sea birds use for nesting. Read More »

Missouri-based seed and herbicide giant Monsanto, which has operations in 10 Latin American countries in addition to Puerto Rico, said today that it will leave the sugar-cane business in Brazil, focusing instead on its seeds, crop protection and biological and digital agriculture business in the country. The closure of the sugar cane operations will affect 150 employees. Read More »

The Ecuadorean state oil company Petroecuador will eliminate longstanding subsidies to premium gasoline in a gradual way while it reduces personnel and sells gasoline stations, all amid pressure from lower crude oil export revenue, the company´s chief official Carlos Pareja said. There will be an increase of 2 cents per gallon per month, so as to reach the $2.30 per gallon. Read More »

Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean declined to 5.6 percent of its population in 2014 compared with 6.2 percent in 2012, according to data released this week by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim who is in Peru for the World Bank-IMF annual meetings. The Latin American and Caribbean population in 2014 was about 525 million, according to figures from the World Bank. Read More »