Dilma to attend BRICS Summit in India

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff will fly to India next Wednesday.

She’ll be taking part there in the latest (i.e. the fourth) summit of the former ‘BRIC’ association of countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). The group’s name is now expanded to ‘BRICS’ reflecting the inclusion of the latest member, South Africa.  President “Dilma” is of course highly concerned with inward or domestic investing in Brazil and exploring how this can be boosted will be one of the most prominent aspects of her agenda for the conference.

The five countries are increasingly seen in the world as up-and-coming economies and societies although they do have their differences. In particular, Russia is something of a special case (after all, it was once the main part of the superpower USSR before a period of great hardship following break up of that Union).
China of course is moving ahead economically very quickly and some would say is on course to become a superpower. India too is making strides and its vast population is not far behind China’s (they are both well over a billion). South Africa is developing but is probably still the fifth of the group, though the first economic power of sub-Saharan Africa.

It’s in this context that the Brazilian President will seek to explore options for the advancement of her own country. The conference as a whole will be focusing this time on the theme of ‘sustainable development’ in three main areas, economic, social and environmental.

In other words, towards green economies linked to the eradication of poverty

The BRICS countries are influential more widely, too as two of their members; China and Russia are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

In parallel to the main BRICS Forum will be a meeting of the presidents of each country’s central bank.
All in all, the gathering in India will be an important one

Brazil sees growth of GMO production.

For those (domestic or foreign) organisations interested in Investing in Brazil, agriculture has always been viewed as something of a complex item. The same is true of course of individuals looking for a secure home for their money. On the one hand, people (and other creatures) will always need to eat, so a steady if unexciting market can be predicted.

On the other, agriculture for non-food bio-fuel production has seemed a very tempting alternative, though not without potential disadvantages, to say the least.

Then there is another, highly controversial aspect. Quite simply, it’s the rapid spread of genetically-modified organisms (GMO’S) used for crop growth. This has fierce advocates who see at as the magic solution to agriculture’s problems for decades to come. Alternately, there are those in Brazil and elsewhere who view the method as essentially gambling with the safety of millions of people. Among other things they quote how easy it seems for genetically-altered flora to ‘overspill’ into the growth cycle of other more ‘natural’
plant life nearby.

Whatever one’s opinion,the figures are huge. In 2011 in Brazil, according to CNA ( Brazil’s Agriculture and Livestock Confederation) GMO’s -in particular corn (maize) and soya- have spread rapidly. They now comprise nearly thirty percent of the country’s food growth, to a value of $R 58 Billion.

There’s no doubt that many see this newest aspect of agriculture to be an intriguing possibility for so-called ‘ Alternative Investments ’ in a growing part of the economy. If it works as expected, it will benefit many millions of people.

Two connected trends in Brazil’s Economy

Two different but connected trends deeply affect the economy of Latin America’s largest nation these days. One of them is the level of direct investing in Brazilian Industry and the other is the importance of a suitably-educated workforce. Both these aspects have featured in the news this week.

Regarding investment, President Dilma Rousseff will this week engage in a high-level meeting with twenty-seven of the country’s largest and most important employers. She will explore with them ways in which the productive sector of  Industry can be further boosted by more domestic capital investment. The aim will be to try and ‘warm-up again’ the recent cooling of Brazil’s commercial growth. While by no means alarming of course, growth in the economy has shown signs of not forging ahead quite as rapidly as hoped for.

Government sources have confirmed that Dilma and her administration still aim for economic expansion of at least four per cent this year. This will mean an increased input from industrialists who understand that ‘resting on laurels’ is not an option for the Country.

The issue of a well-educated workforce is linked to that of investment, of course. As well as financial capital being essential to keep up the pace of growth, so is human capital. In this context, commentators have noted with interest the findings of a recent survey conducted jointly by the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and ‘Senai’ ( The National Service For Industrial Learning). The survey found a marked increase in the number of Brazilians annually who attended professional training courses over the last five years. The increase is over 80%. These people mostly constitute the new and expanding ‘middle class’ in Brazil.

The figures also indicate that the average income of people trained in needed skills like this earn on average about fifteen percent more than those who are not. They benefit both themselves and the economy at the same time. Therefore money spent on training for them could be regarded as the Best Investment Brazil (or any other nation) could make.

250 Million Mobile Phones now in Brazil

Brazil will pass an important economic milestone this month and one which says significant things about its society and economy. Easier and more widespread communications are becoming an increasing feature of national life. This is a fact which has important implications for such important aspects as Investing in Brazil and the growing awareness among ordinary people of important national initiatives designed to improve life.
Among the spread of these is the growing availability of health and welfare schemes plus of course social housing provision, a vital aspect in this country which still has a huge deficit.

An important background to all this is the strong and rapid growth in mobile phone (called ‘cell phone’ in the US) usage in the South American giant. Apparently the total number of lines for the devices will exceed a quarter of a Billion (250 million) for the first time this month. That’s the equivalent of well over one each, on average, for every one of the nation’s inhabitants, man, woman or child.

The total figure has been growing steadily at over one per cent per month and is expected to continue at this rate for some time.

There are regional variations of course. Brasilia, Sao Paolo and Rio for instance are above the average of 126 per one hundred inhabitants.

At the other end of the scale, the State of Maranhão remains the only one where the total falls below an average of one per person.

The growing figures have featured in the latest report from ANATEL (the well-known acronym for Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency).

The market share of service providers is interesting. Vivo has an almost 30% share of business with TIM a close second at 26.6%. These are followed by Claro (nearly 25%) and Hi with 18.6%. Apart from these ‘big four’ providers there are a number of tiny ‘minnows’ bringing up the rear with less than one per cent each.

Dilma to attend Summit and Book Fair in Colombia

The next international ‘Summit of the Americas' meetingwill take place in April in the city of Cartagena in Colombia. The delegation from Brazil will be led by President Dilma Rousseff, a fact announced on Thursday of this week by Juan Manuel Santos, her counterpart as President of Columbia. Senor Santos outlined ; “ Yesterday I had a conversation with the President of Brazil who will come to the Summit and participate in a discussion panel with both myself and the U.S. President, Barack Obama”.

The agenda for the panel has not yet been finalised and/or announced in detail. However, it's expected by many that it will include regional co-operation of the continent’s economies (including investing in Brazil) together with an exchange of views on social and environmental matters. For instance, Brazil’s highly successful ‘ Minha Casa Minha Vida ’ social housing scheme is much admired elsewhere in the Americas and other countries are seeking ways to tailor similar programmes to their own domestic needs.

Juan Manuel Santos went on to explain that the summit will be held on the 14th and 15th of the month in the caribbean port of Cartagena, following which Dilma will stay in the country for an extra time.

During this period she will officially open and inaugurate the International Book Fair in Bogota, the capital of Columbia. The Fair will this year celebrate its 25th Anniversary. But not only that, this year the ‘guest of honour’ country at the international literary festival will be Brazil and accordingly over 50 writers and musicians from the Country have been invited to the gathering.

Rice to provide new Bio-fuel for Brazil

An interesting and potentially lucrative home for 'alternative investments' has been launched in Brazil, South America. It relates crucially to energy supply in the leading BRIC (BRIC is an acronym that refers to the countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which are all seen  to be at a very similar stages of economic development, although Brazil seems to be racing ahead at the moment) Country. The background is that traditional everyday fuel sources have had more and more demands placed on them in recent times due to  global population growth, essentially finite supplies are now struggling to keep up with burgeoning demand in the developing economic countries. This is not just caused by ever-expanding Industry of course but also by the growing consumption of ordinary people too.

In this context the pioneering  and groundbreaking work being done by 'Vinema Multioles Vegetais' (a southern-based company located in Rio Grande do Sul state in North East, Brazil) is very important. The company's new approach to bio-fuels  uses by-products from the rice 'industry' to produce ethanol based bio-fuel products.

The simple but effective concept uses standard rice grains which have been deemed unsuitable for consumption as food (chalky, damaged, stained, etc) and converts them into a usable non-carbon fuel source. The process, by the way, overcomes a principal objection to bio-fuels which has always been that they use up far too much land and resources which should be used more urgently to produce food.

The Head of Research at Vinema is Vilson Machado who explained to listeners recently at a conference that the company plans to construct and install six different rice ethanol bio fuel refineries by the end of this decade. Each one of them will have the capacity to produce up to one hundred million Litres of the bio fuel every year, totalling well over half a billion Litres across the six refineries!  Every year Brazil grows and harvests over fifteen million tonnes of rice. About 15% of this rice is substandard and before now was deemed useless, but now this substandard  rice can potentially become a raw material for the many refinery plants around Brazil.

Needless to say the whole idea is attracting ever growing interest from potential investors large and small across the globe and also people and companies already involved in the main or subsidiary fuel industry.

The options now for Investing in Brazil (both domestic and international) have taken a new and interesting twist!

Brazilian Budget cuts will not affect Minha Casa Minha Vida

Substantial cuts in the national budget for Brazil have been announced by the Government. The total sliced off this year’s planned expenditure is a substantial fifty-five billion Reals.

However, the Ministers for Finance and Planning, Guido Mantega and Miriam Belchior, have reassured the country. These cuts to lower inflation and stimulate growth will only impact on administration and bureaucracy they claim and not affect important social programmes such as the hugely-popular Minha Casa Minha Vida affordable housing scheme.

The ministers outlined that about 14 Billion altogether of the total will be the reduction from the ministries of Health, Education, Defence and cities. Mr.Mantega explained that the cuts (up about ten per cent from last year’s) are necessary to allow a drop in interest rates. In turn this would hopefully lead to the government meeting its objective for the ‘primary surplus target’, a yearly aim to help bring down long-term government debt.

On the positive side, the Minister for Finance says he is anticipating for this year growth in the economy of about 4.5 %.but not everyone agrees. For example, many leading banks expect only about 3.5 percent while the UN sees only a GDP increase of two point seven percent.

However, there’s better news from the many infrastructural projects.These are expected by some people to actually sustain the nation’s economy. A key plank in this ‘structure’ will be the recently launched scheme for privatising the airports. And of course, last but by no means least, much is expected from the spin off for preparations for the football World Cup in two years’ time and the Olympics a couple more years after that.