Bloomberg Chilean retail sales rose at the fastest pace in two-and-a-half years in April as early rains and cold weather encouraged consumers to shop for winter clothes earlier than last year. Sales leaped 7.9 percent from the year earlier, the national statistics agency said on its website, compared with the 4.5 percent median forecast of 13 analysts surveyed by …

  Bloomberg Brazil’s central government posted a higher-than-expected primary fiscal surplus in April due to a seasonal windfall, a week after the government of Acting President Michel Temer obtained permission to close the year with the widest budget gap on record. The surplus before interest payments, which excludes results of states, municipalities and state-owned companies, reached 9.8 billion reais ($2.7 …

  Santiago, Chile / AFP Latin America’s biggest airline LATAM said it will suspend its flights to crisis-hit Venezuela for an indefinite period, following a similar move by German carrier Lufthansa. Chile-based LATAM Airlines group and its Peruvian and Brazilian subsidiaries decided to cut the flights “due to the complex macroeconomic situation that the region is currently going through,” it said …