Source: Deal Book

Redpoint Ventures and BV Capital’s eVentures have begun a new venture capital firm called Redpoint eVentures based in São Paulo, Brazil — the latest illustration of the country’s growing Internet start-up ecosystem.

Yann de Vries and Anderson Thees are its founding partners. Mr. de Vries was head of corporate development for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America for Cisco Systems until last year and was previously a BV Capital eVentures principal.

Mr. Thees, who is Brazilian, was previously chief executive of Apontador, a site similar to Yelp. Before that, he was vice president of business development at BuscaPe, a price comparison site based in São Paulo that was a pioneer in Brazil’s start-up scene, one of the few survivors of the first dot-com boom.

“You will see a number of investments” from the joint venture in the coming months, said Mathias Schilling, a co-founder of BV …

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Source: MercoPress

Argentina must solve the controversy over the measurement of inflation which has significant economic and political costs, said Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla the Inter American Development Bank, IADB, director for Argentina and Haiti.

“We need to solve the conflict surrounding inflation stats”, said Diaz-Bonilla during discussions at the Inter American Dialogue in Washington. “The controversy has many political, economic and institutional costs” added the economist who revealed he has addressed the issue with Argentine officials.

According to Argentina’s discredited National Stats and Census Institute, Indec, inflation in 2011 was 9.5%, but private consultants put the figure at 22%, and this is the percentage on which for example the unions negotiate salaries. Likewise some provinces ruled by the opposition also have similar two-digit measurements.

Last week The Economist said it would no longer take into account Indec stats and clearly called on the government to ‘stop manipulating percentages” because they are not to …

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Source: Economic Times

India is likely to join a multilateral bank this year to give a fillip to its trade ties with Latin America that have expanded at an unprecedented rate in the last decade.

The finance ministry is considering an investment of about $300 million to become a member of the US-based Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which supports development in Latin America and the Caribbean region with a corpus of over $60 billion.

The foreign ministry had been pitching for an IDB membership almost every year since 2001, but the finance ministry had been reluctant as there was hardly any trade with the region then. The recent spurt in economic ties has spurred a re-think, with the commerce ministry giving its backing.

“There is a time for everything, and given the growth in trade since 2001, I think the time has come to seriously evaluate this (IDB membership), which the …

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Source: Reuters

Chile’s annual inflation this year will likely be substantially lower than in 2011, when it shot up above the central bank’s tolerance range to reach 4.4 percent, Finance Minister Felipe Larrain said on Thursday.

“We’re confident that this year inflation will be substantially lower than last year’s, and we’ve already had a good start with January inflation,” Larrain told reporters.

Chilean inflation slowed in January, coming in slightly below market expectations, with the consumer price index rising 0.1 percent, following December’s shock 0.6 percent increase.

Reduced inflation could give the central bank room to reduce its key interest rate further after it held rates steady at 5.0 percent in February following a surprise 25 basis point cut in January. However, strong local economic activity and robust domestic demand will likely prompt the bank to again hold rates pat in March, a recent poll showed.

The monetary authority is seen keeping its …

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Source: The Christian Science Monitor

Lauded for its economic stability and entrepreneurial opportunities, interns and career changers alike are looking to Latin America to launch their careers.

When Tara Roberts lost her job as a magazine editor in the midst of the recession, she decided to start her own business. The American from Atlanta wanted to create a social networking company that connects women around the globe working to improve their communities.

“I had been the victim of the downsizing, the madness of the US economy, and the idea of exploring another place – living in another [country] was also really exciting to me,” says Roberts, who began developing GirlTank in November as part of a Chilean government-sponsored program called Start-Up Chile.

“One of the great things about being [in Chile] is that there is such an opportunity to do anything,” she says. “You can really start projects here, and there is …

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Source: The Toronto Star

The globe’s biggest Carnival bash opens Friday, and it promises to be an even bigger blowout this year, with 20 per cent more tourists expected than in 2011.

Rio officials say they’re also better prepared to keep the chaos under some semblance of control, with more portable toilets, traffic guards and paramedics, as well as a new central command centre monitoring it all.

“We want revellers to be conscious that they can party but also care for the city’s public spaces,” the president of Rio’s tourism department, Antonio Figueira de Mello, said in a statement.

About 850,000 tourists are expected during the raucous, five-day free-for-all that kicks off when Rio’s mayor hands the key to the city to rotund King Momo, the mythical jester figure who reigns over Carnival.

Merrymakers are expected to spend $640 million and generate 250,000 jobs, according to the city’s economic development department. But …

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Source: Reuters

A court has ordered Mexico’s competition watchdog to investigate claims of collusion between businesses controlled by telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim and Spain’s Telefonica, according to a court document seen by Reuters on Sunday.

The federal court asked the Federal Competition Commission (Cofeco) to determine whether there was anything improper in Isidro Faine, a vice-chairman on the Telefonica (TEF.MC) board, also sitting on the board of Slim’s financial group Inbursa (GFINBURO.MX).

“(It) could possibly mean that the said companies find it easier to make deals … that reduce competition,” the court said in the January 30 document, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

The ruling is the latest twist in a legal complaint brought against Slim and Telefonica last year by companies owned by Mexico’s two top broadcasting moguls, Emilio Azcarraga of Televisa and Ricardo Salinas of TV Azteca, who are keen to challenge Slim’s dominance of the telephone …

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Source: MercoPress

Argentina limited the use of cash in the country’s financial markets as President Cristina Fernandez tightens oversight of currency transactions to help contain capital flight and prepare for what is anticipated a ‘difficult’ year for the Treasury and the Argentine economy.

The government will restrict daily cash transactions to 1.000 Pesos (231 US dollars) per person, down from 10.000 Pesos, according to a statement in the Official Gazette. The measure affects activity in the stock and bond markets, investment funds and in the futures markets. Operations above the limit will have to be done through Argentine bank accounts that are authorized by the central bank.

“They are forcing a higher level of formality in the economy, as cash transactions allow more irregularities,” said Felipe Hernandez, an analyst at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut. “This is in line with other measures to prevent money laundering, for which the government …

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Source: Daily Mail

Brazil could become the first country to take Twitter up on its plan to censor Tweets at government request.

The move has sparked alarm among privacy groups, who fear governments will use the same policy to silence dissenting voices.

The Brazilian government has requested an injunction to stop Twitter users from alerting drivers to police road blocks, speed traps and drunk-driving checkpoints.

Free-speech groups say it appears to be the first use of Twitter’s controversial new censorship policy.

Twitter unveiled plans last month that would allow governments to censor Tweets, making ‘illegal’ Tweets completely invisible in their native countries.

The move sparked alarm among free-speech activists, and Twitter has been closely watched to see which countries will use the facility to ‘silence’ people within their country.

Previously, Tweets worked on a global level – if someone Tweeted in one country, it was visible everywhere.

‘As far as we know this is the …

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Source: Bloomberg Business Week

Chilean consumer prices rose 0.1 percent in January from December, leaving the annual inflation rate above the target range for a second straight month, the National Statistics Institute said.

Prices climbed 4.2 percent from a year earlier and monthly core inflation, which excludes fuel and produce, was 0.1 percent, the institute said in a report today. The median estimate of 16 analysts was for prices to rise 0.2 percent in the month.

With annual inflation above the central bank’s 2 percent to 4 percent target, policy makers probably will pause before repeating last month’s surprise quarter-point cut in its benchmark interest rate, economist Cristobal Doberti said by phone. Since the Jan. 12 rate reduction, data show unemployment tumbled and economic growth accelerated in December.

“Given the recent economic activity data we’ve seen locally and abroad together with the increase in salaries, we expect the bank to hold the …

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