Deutsche Bank sees hope in the commodity markets

The global head of Deutsche Bank‘s commodity unit, David Silbert, announced today the bank (Germany’s largest bank by market share) will be expanding its commodity team by roughly 10% this year.

DB will be adding new assets of coal, European natural gas and shipping to its balance sheets.

DB has seen its revenue from commodities quadruple over past two years. The bank seems confident this trend can continue and that as global stimulus packages hit the market and the general global economic outlook improves, commodity demand will once again head north.

“With hope of an economic rebound, crude, base metals prices are going to be higher than now,” said Silbert.

Bloomberg does a pretty good job in this article of contrasting DB‘s strategy vs tha to Zurich-based UBS AG.

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South-South Cooperation: Chile supports India as permanent member of UN Security Council – MercoPress

India and Chile reaffirmed their support for a comprehensive reform of the United Nations including expansion of the Security Council to make the world body more representative, legitimate and effective.

PM Manmohan Singh and visiting Chilean President Michelle Bachelet stressed and acknowledged the need for continued efforts by member states to ensure “meaningful and result-oriented intergovernmental negotiations”.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet with PM Manmohan Singh

The joint statement issued after the meeting said that Chile reiterated its support for India’s permanent membership on an expanded UN Security Council. It also confirmed their reciprocal support for each other’s candidature for non-permanent membership of the UN Security Council for 2011-12 (India) and 2014-15 (Chile).

Click here to access the complete article from MercoPress

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South America – Arab League meet world at annual summit – MercoPress

The Arab League and South American countries will open Tuesday, their second summit with the purpose of boosting trade and cooperation. The idea of regular meetings between the 22 members of the Arab League and 12 South American countries was born in Brasilia in 2005, sponsored by Brazilian president Lula da Silva.

Although geographically very distant the two regions have long historic links in such areas as oil production (Venezuela and Saudi Arabia were five of the founding members of OPEC) and even migration: there’s a strong component of Arab descendants in South America. Sao Paulo for example is considered the second Syrian city of the world behind Damascus.

The purpose of the regular summits which includes government officials and business representatives is not only closer trade links, possibly some form of association, but also political, with strong cooperation in the international arena, according to Brazilian sources.

Click here to access the complete article from MercoPress

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China’s Minmetals makes a new offer for Australian miner OZ Minerals — Reuters Video

Mar 31 – China’s state-owned Minmetals made new offer for Australian miner OZ Minerals, as the world’s No.3 economy continues its push for resource acquisitions.

China makes a new offer for Australian miner OZ Minerals excludes Prominent Hill while OZ hopes to seal debt extension by early Wednesday.

Kitty Bu of Reuters reports

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Vice Prez, Joe Biden says "US moving towards new day in Latin America

La Nacion, a Buenos Aires based newspaper published a interesting op-ed piece today, which the Latin American Herald (access their article here).

Biden stressed the importance of the Progressive Governance conference which he is currently attending in Chile.

Joe Biden with a few South American heads of state

Biden also had the guts to acknowledge much like Hillary Clinton did in Mexico the other day that the United States must “do more” to reduce the demand for illegal drugs and stop the arms trade.”

He congratulated “Mexico’s brave stand” against drug cartels and the “efforts” of Colombia to combat drugs, but warned that these “will have the secondary effect of pushing traffickers towards Central America.”

“The world economic crisis has affected almost everyone. Citizens of all countries are looking for answers, looking for hope, and for that they turn to their leaders. It is our duty, as partners, to listen to their plea and together forge the solution to a shared problem, explained Biden.”

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China and Argentina Agree on Currency Swap –Update from IDB annual meeting in Colombia

March 30 (Bloomberg) — The central banks of China and Argentina reached an agreement for a three-year, 70 billion yuan ($10 billion) currency swap, Chinese Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan told reporters in Medellin, Colombia, today.

It’s the first such accord between the world’s third- biggest economy and a Latin American nation. The move follows swap accords between China and Indonesia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Belarus.

The agreement broadens Argentina’s access to foreign- currency reserves and may ease concerns about the country’s ability to control the peso amid uncertainty over a conflict with farmers over export taxes and legislative elections scheduled for June 28. Argentina wasn’t part of a swap facility program created by the U.S. Federal Reserve for emerging markets, including Brazil and Mexico, last year.

Click here to access this full article from Bloomberg

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Venezuela and Iran meet to discuss joint projects

The higher-ups of Venezuela and Iran’s respective governments met in Caracas to go over a handful of planned joint-projects. The meeting was headed by the foreign ministers of Iran and Venezuela, Manouchehr Mottaki and Nicolás Maduro according to this report from the Latin American Herald.

Another issue which was discussed was the potential of the creation of a Venezuelan-Iranian Investment Fund. The ultimate goal of a such would be to promote the exchange of raw material for technology, technology projects, the construction of a cement factory, projects in the energy sphere and the construction of machinery plants which would produce tractor and other auto parts.”

Chavez went one step further and explained “I’m going to Iran to continue fortifying relations with Iran, because among other things we’re installing the Iranian-Venezuelan bank.”

For a country like Iran this sounds like a pretty sweet deal. After years of relative isolation from the global community and market place Iran has become pretty good at producing a variety of goods domestically. Exchanging the skills Iran developed over the years for economic and technological benefits from Venezuela is a great way to exploit your skills and services that are otherwise unwanted anywhere in the world outside of lawless Iraq.

For Venezuela on the other hand, increasing levels of economic, technological or political cooperation with a country like Iran can yield no net benefit. The world will only further ostracize Venezuela and demonize Hugo Chavez for this.

I feel for the innocent Venezuelans who where simply fun loving, baseball playing, oil exporting Latino’s a few years back… Now Venezuelan friends of mine are canceling weddings and family reunions here in New York City because of either

a) their families have suddenly been denied visas or,

b) the new rules which limit the amount of cash Venezuelan’s can take out of the country just SLIGHTLY hinder a expensive life event like a wedding.

For Venezuelan’s this must hurt, especially considering until a decade ago securing a U.S visa for a Venezuelan was far easier than for a Peruvian, Ecuadorian Mexican or Salvadorian.

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Green investment in Chile — Irish firm to invest $1 billion in wind farms

Ireland’s Mainstream Renewable Power has just announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in Chile over the next five years in the construction of wind farms, according to company CEO, Eddie O’Conner.

Mainstream Renewable Power will partner up with Andes Energy, Chilean energy company in order to lay the foundation for a system which will generate more than 400 MW of electricity.

O’Conner presented a report to the Chilean Energy Minister Marcelo Tokman this past Tuesday outlining how if certain strategies are implemented correctly it would be possible for Chile to achieve energy independence.

“Our research shows that Chile has the natural resources to develop 44,000 megawatts of wind energy and another 37,000 of solar energy. Renewable energy resources alone can turn Chile into an exporter of clean energies.” O’Connor said.

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Latin America hopeful for more Chinese investment

The Governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan was in Colombia this weekend rubbing shoulders with the head honchos of Latin America’s governments, intellectuals and business leaders.

Chinese Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan
attends the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
meeting in Medellin, Colombia, March 28, 2009.
(Xinhua/David De La Paz)

Most major media outlets from North America and Europe picked up Zhou’s pledge that China would actively support the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other multilateral lending organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

This naturally means China will want a legitimate voice in these institutions. Hopefully a Chinese voice will be for the better, not worse. Giving the Chinese a shot after all the foul-ups with U.S led efforts in the IMF shouldn’t be too much to ask.

After reading through comments and quotes from various media reports on Zhou’s speech, the consensus is clear. China plans on continuing the promotion of South-South Cooperation between developing nations—and is particularity optimistic about the prospects which lie ahead in regard to Sino-Latin American cooperation..

“South-South cooperation is all the more important amid the current financial crisis, and China will expand its trade with and increase its investment in Latin American countries after it joined the IDB, he said.”

“We see huge potential for economic ties and trade between Latin America and China,” he said, noting that China has a free-trade pact with Chile, has concluded negotiations for such a pact with Peru and could have one with Costa Rica.

“The potential for China to make foreign direct investment in the region is huge,” he said, adding that some sectors of special interest are in pharmaceuticals, computer software, aeronautics and biological products.

Trade between China and the greater Latin American region has been growing at an average rate of 40% in recent years and hit a record high of $143.3 billion in 2008 according to Xinhua News Media.

Zhou was in Colombia attending the 50th annual meeting of the IDB, which it joined in January this year.

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Reuters Business Feed

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