Brazil, Argentina seek business without dollars

Argentine President Alberto Fernández and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, vowed to keep working to come up with a mechanism that would allow them to avoid the dollar in trade between the neighboring nations.

Brazil is Argentina’s largest trade partner and the deal could afford Argentina some breathing room at a time when it is suffering from a shortage of dollars.The proposed plan involves a line of credit to finance Brazilian companies that export to Argentina with the intention of avoiding the use of the dollar.

Argentina struck a deal with China that allows its companies to pay for Chinese imports with yuan.Lula, for his part, hailed an agreement between Brazil and China to use the yuan in their bilateral commerce while in Shanghai last month, while also taking swipes at the dominance of the dollar in international trade and at the International Monetary Fund.