Argentina-20,000 tons of beef and 50,000 tons of grain sold to Venezuela.
Argentina will sell 50,000 metric tons of yellow corn and 20,000 tons of meat to Venezuela, the Argentine foreign ministry said today.
BRWEAKING NEWS.
Argentina’s former President Nestor Kirchner may announce his candidacy to win a congressional seat in Buenos Aires province in a bid to build support for his wife Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s government, a pollster said.
Kirchner, 59, could announce his candidacy this week, said Sergio Berensztein, a political analyst at polling company Poliarquia Consultores in Buenos Aires. Political parties have until May 9 to submit their lists of candidates for the June 28 election. The move is a gamble for Kirchner, who has headed the ruling Peronist party since last year.
"Buenos Aires province is the most important province, politically and economically," Berensztein said in a telephone interview. "It’s a stronghold for the government and to lose there would be a serious blow."
Speculation that Kirchner will lead the government’s party list in Buenos Aires province has dominated newspaper headlines in the country for the past month, with supporters such as Justice Minister Anibal Fernandez saying the ex-president would make the best candidate. Even in the province, the president’s support is flagging on the economy and crime.
"The government is going to win, but it’s going to be very close," said Jesus Cariglino, the Peronist mayor of Malvinas Argentinas, an industrial city of 400,000 on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. "The people want a government that is more about dialog and reconciliation."
Stronghold
Public support for Fernandez, 56, fell to 20 percent from 45 percent last year after a dispute with farmers over export taxes triggered food shortages and nationwide protests at the same time concerns about crime were mounting.
An economy that grew more than 8 percent for five straight years is projected to shrink 2.8 percent this year as demand for the country’s exports falls, according to the median estimate of seven economists in a Bloomberg survey.
Kirchner, who led Argentina after a financial crisis in 2001 pushed the country into default on $95 billion of debt, hasn’t signaled his intentions about joining the race. The Peronist party’s press offices declined to comment on his candidacy.
’Inferno’
In an April 14 speech, Kirchner said he and former Vice President Daniel Scioli, another potential candidate, helped lead Argentina "out of the inferno." He went on to argue that economists who say the economy is shrinking are wrong.
"The economy is re-activating, despite the crisis," he said. "More than that, we are growing."
Fernandez last month got congress to move up this year’s elections from October to June, saying it would be "suicidal" to let the campaign drag on while "the world is crumbling into pieces." A third of the senate’s 72 seats and half the lower house seats will be up for grabs in the balloting.
Her move followed the defeat of a coalition of Peronist candidates in Catamarca province in local elections March 8. Fernandez also lost the support of some long-time allies in the senate, eroding her coalition’s majority.
"This is clearly a sign of weakness," Daniel Kerner, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, said in an April 9 report.
A coalition of opposition and dissident Peronists, including Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, agreed last week to try and defeat Fernandez’s allies in June. Lawmaker Francisco de Narvaez will lead their effort in Buenos Aires province.
Markets
The yield on Argentina’s benchmark 8.28 percent dollar bonds due in 2033 fell 30 basis points, or 0.3 percentage point, last week to 24.84 percent, according to Bloomberg data. The bond’s price rose 45 cents on the dollar to 29.45 cents.
