Reuters, 08/29/2012
The Brazilian government said on Wednesday it will use some of its stake in the country’s largest lender to bulk up financing of shipbuilding projects at a time when infrastructure investments are taking center stage.
Under terms of an executive decree, the Finance Ministry will be allowed to transfer as much as 2.5 billion reais ($1.22 billion) worth of shares of state-controlled Banco do Brasil to the capital of the so-called Naval Construction Guarantee Fund.
In recent weeks, Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, signed contracts with several private sector groups for the construction of nine drilling rigs that will be used to extract oil from deep sea wells off Brazil’s coast.
