Financial & Investments

A large inflow of dollars would pressure the peso to strengthen, hurting the export sector’s competitiveness abroad. Chile’s economy depends greatly on the export of copper, wood pulp, molybdenum, minerals, wine, fresh fruits and other natural resources.

In recent years, the government has issued all its debt on the local market to avoid pressuring the peso to strengthen against the dollar.

On Thursday, Chile issued $1 billion in 10-year, dollar-denominated bonds and another $520 million in 10-year peso-denominated bonds.

“We aren’t going to bring the dollars [from the issue] back all at once, we’re going to bring them back to Chile gradually as the need arises,” Larrain told reporters.

Cliffs Natural Resources Inc., the U.S. iron-ore producer which has made four takeover bids this year, said it’s still looking for opportunities to make additional acquisitions.

“It needs to fit the criteria of our strategy, the minerals that we’re comfortable with, that we believe have good supply and demand dynamics,” Chief Financial Officer Laurie Brlas said in an interview in New York today. “There could be a bolt-on, it certainly could be transformational, but those are less common.”

The Cleveland-based company’s deals in 2010 have a combined value of more than $1 billion, Brlas said. They include a $757 million bid for coal miner INR Energy LLC and a $80.8 million offer for Spider Resources Inc.

Senior Board and Staff will preside over the NASDAQ opening bell along with riders and crew from Braking the Cycle to raise awareness for 2010 Braking the Cycle Bike Ride taking place in September. The ride benefits the HIV/AIDS services of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center and in the last seven years has net over $2.1 million for the fight against HIV/AIDS. For more information please visit http://www.brakingthecycle.org