Protests widen as Brazilians chide leaders

Simon Romero – The New York Times, 06/19/2013

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — A wave of new protests swept through areas of São Paulo, the country’s largest city, early on Wednesday as groups of demonstrators shut roads leading into the city, snarling traffic and increasing pressure on political leaders.

Shaken by the biggest challenge to their authority in years, Brazil’s leaders made conciliatory gestures on Tuesday to try to defuse the protests engulfing the nation’s cities. But the demonstrators have remained defiant, pouring into the streets by the thousands and venting their anger over political corruption, the high cost of living, and huge public spending for the World Cup and the Olympics.

Protesters denounced their leaders as dedicating excessive resources to cultivating Brazil’s global image by building stadiums for international events, when basic services like education and health care remained woefully inadequate.

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Why the World Cup can’t save Brazil’s tourism industry

Brad Haynes – Reuters, 06/17/2013

For soccer fans flocking to Confederations Cup matches in Brazil’s tropical northeast next week, getting tickets to the stadium should be simple – but two in three will not find accommodations in the host city Recife.

Officials are sending visitors as far as 120 kilometers (75 miles) inland to spend the night, a detour on par with staying in Philadelphia for a New York Knicks game.

The tournament starting Saturday, a dress rehearsal for the 2014 World Cup, will lay bare for visitors what may surprise many: despite gorgeous beaches, a tempting climate and legendary hospitality, Brazil’s tourism industry pales next to its neighbors.

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Of great friendships and natural partners

The Economist, 06/17/2013

ON JUNE 6th Angola’s president, José Eduardo dos Santos, gave his first major interview in 22 years. In it, Mr dos Santos said that the statesman he most admires is Brazil’s former president, Lula da Silva, because of his work to forge a more inclusive society. An unexpected role model, perhaps, for the president of a country in which a vast gap between rich and poor has increased over his 33-year rule. Yet it was, after all, a Brazilian, João Santana—mastermind of Lula’s re-election in 2005—who led Mr dos Santos’s own re-election campaign in 2012. His party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, was never really likely to lose (as it happens, it won 72% of the vote), but the export of Brazilian political communications skills added a new layer to the construction and extractives expertise that Mr dos Santos made central to the reconstruction of Angola. Brazil and Angola boast a “great friendship”, he said.

On Portugal he was more tempered. The Portuguese are welcome in Angola, he insisted; noting, however, that Angolan investors were not always so well received in Lisbon. Maybe, he wondered, this was down to nostalgia for the past? A self-assured pique from a president who knows that Angola in 2013 needs Portugal less than its former colonial master needs Angola.  Ever since he made headlines offering to help Portugal cope with crisis in 2011—and his daughter’s acquisition of Banco Português de Negócios paved the way for Portugal’s IMF bail-out—the power dynamic has shifted. Some Portuguese have found that hard to swallow. In turn, Mr dos Santos finds it hard to swallow Portuguese moralising. Prosecutors in Lisbon, Portugal’s capital, recently announced an investigation into the Angolan attorney-general, João Maria de Sousa, for fraud and graft. The investigation is routine—Portuguese banks are allegedly involved—but the political implications are big.

Lectures are conspicuously absent in Brazil’s engagement with Africa. Just this month, Brazil announced it would cancel $900 million of African debt, the latest in a series of diplomatic overtures that have characterised the country’s Africa strategy since Lula’s first term in 2003. In May Brazil’s foreign minister, António Patriota, announced his support for the inclusion of Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea in the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries (CPLP). Meanwhile Gol, Brazil’s low-cost airline, announced that it would press ahead with plans to establish three weekly flights to Nigeria; and Ethiopia’s foreign ministry revealed that the Brazilian development bank was in talks to fund a $1billion railway construction project in the country.

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Brazil: eager to explore new frontiers in Africa

Ruth Costas – BBC Brasil, 06/11/2013

The government and some large Brazilian companies are betting on the opening of new frontiers in the African market.

In recent years, Brazil has increased its economic presence both in Lusophone Africa – mainly Angola and Mozambique – as in South Africa (considered to be one of the more “mature markets” in the region along with North African countries.)

Now, explained Ambassador Paulo Cordeiro, secretary-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Africa and the Middle East, one of the greatest challenges for Brazilian diplomacy is to create the right conditions so that a growing number of companies explore new investment opportunities in emerging African markets, such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan, Kenya, Guinea, Tanzania, Senegal and Ghana.

“These efforts are a big part of my work. We are committed to creating the right environment for this expansion to take place, and to convince Brazilian society that the African continent has many interesting opportunities to offer- and not only in Portuguese speaking countries,” said Lamb.

Official initiatives range from programs for military and technical cooperation to projects for expanding the financing of investments in the continent as well as efforts for political rapprochement.

These initiatives work alongside some large Brazilian companies that have been actively seeking out business opportunities in countries that until recently were synonymous with conflict and extreme poverty, interested primarily in opportunities in the infrastructure and natural resources sectors.

According to Cordeiro, the decision announced by President Dilma Rousseff to forgive $900 million dollars of African debt took place amidst these expansion plans.

Financing

In total, 12 countries will benefit from President Rousseff’s decision: Congo, Tanzania, Zambia, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Mauritania, Sudan, Sao Tome and Principe and Guinea-Bissau –of which only the last two classify as Lusophone nations.

Until recently, Brazilian state-owned banks could not finance investments and trade flows to these countries because of their unsettled debts with Brazil.

This measure will allow the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and Banco do Brasil to finance Brazilian exports as well as investments and infrastructure projects carried out by Brazilian companies (today, almost all BNDES loans for projects in Africa go to Mozambique and Angola.)

“The demand for investment and cooperation called for by African countries is immense,” said Cordeiro. “Tanzania wants Brazilian companies to help in the hydroelectric sector, for example, and Gabon seeks investments in oil. We also have many Brazilian companies interested in participating in this market – but we are still lacking the means to finance such projects.”

According to the Ambassador, in order to solve this problem, proposals were made to BNDES to create a board responsible solely for loans to Africa and Latin America.

“We need to think of appropriate financial instruments for these projects in Africa and understand what their guarantees could be,” stated Cordeiro.

Cooperation

Cordeiro points out that in the field of technical cooperation, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) already has projects in several African Countries – among them Senegal, Mali and Ghana. In addition, in terms of military exchange, there has been significant Brazilian participation in the training of Namibia’s Navy.

In the past three months, Dilma made three trips to Africa. Besides her trip to Ethiopia where she participated in the celebration of the African Union’s anniversary, she also went to Guinea Bissau in February to attend the third South America-Africa Summit and to Nigeria to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan.

In March, she attended the 5^th BRICs summit in South Africa, taking the opportunity to also meet with leaders of other African countries.

Moreover, according to the Foreign Ministry (Itamaraty,) in recent years efforts have been made to expand the infrastructure of various Brazilian embassies in Africa, which more than doubled over the last decade, allowing Brazil to rank fourth, along with Russia, in terms of countries with the largest representation in the Continent (behind the United States, China and France.)

Translated from Portuguese

Original article here

Crime doubts persist in Brazil ahead of event

Jenny Barchfield – Miami Herald, 06/13/2013

Not even a day after his arrival in Rio de Janeiro and just hours after attending the Brazil-England soccer friendly at the city’s legendary Maracana stadium, a sports columnist for the Daily Mail newspaper was held up at knifepoint as he strolled along Copacabana Beach.

Adrian Durham darted into oncoming traffic to get away, and in the end the would-be mugger didn’t make off with anything. But the June 2 incident, which Durham described in a recent column, has served as a warning for the tens of thousands of foreign visitors expected to flood into Brazil for this week’s Confederations Cup soccer tournament.

It’s only the first of a series of high-profile events Rio’s is gearing up to host, among them a papal visit in July, next year’s World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

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Brazil drums up business during Confederations Cup

Marco Sibaja -AP – 06/13/2013

Brazil hopes to generate $1 billion in export deals during the Confederations Cup, the warm-up tournament for the 2014 World Cup, the government said Wednesday.

The government’s Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency says it is using football as a way to bring foreign and local business representatives together during the two-week tournament that begins Saturday in Brasilia.

“We have top quality stadiums which, together with the high quality of Brazilian football and the country’s competitive and innovative companies, form a fantastic business platform,” Mauricio Borges, the agency’s president told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

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Will fertilizer companies lose Brazil’s business forever?

Sara Murphy – Daily Finance, 06/11/2013

Around two years ago, Brazil declared its intention to wean itself off of fertilizer imports by 2020. While acknowledging that it could not fully meet domestic potassium demand, Brazil’s stated aim was to become self-sufficient in nitrogen and phosphates, and to reduce its dependence on foreign potash (water-soluble potassium) significantly. Considering that Brazil is one of the world’s largest potash consumers, importing 90% of its requirements, might this be shaping up to be a major blow to international producers?
Over the last 30 years, Brazil has transformed itself into a breadbasket, and it’s done so in large measure by dramatically increasing farm inputs. The government is seeking to close that loop, putting pressure on the industry to triple spending on domestic fertilizer capacity over the course of the next five years.

Why might the country want to become less reliant on imports? Beyond the usual national security arguments, there’s the matter of competitiveness. Transportation of nutrients to inland farms from ports can be very expensive and time consuming. As a result, Brazil’s farmers are losing out to countries like the U.S.

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Brazil turns away from capital controls

Ryan Olson – The Foundry, 06/11/2013

Last week, Brazil announced that it is finally eliminating its most prominent tax on foreign portfolio investment. This reversal is the most recent reminder of the negative effects of capital controls.

Capital controls are measures, sometimes in the form of taxes or fees, that limit the movement of capital into and out of an economy. Championed in Brazil by Finance Minister Guido Mantega, these barriers to foreign investment were supposed to stem the tide of “hot money” flooding into Brazil, and the subsequent appreciation of the Brazilian real. In reality, they limited capital mobility and may have contributed to economic distortions including high inflation, which is currently 6.5 percent.

Mantega’s reversal on capital controls will hopefully mean a more realistic assessment of Brazilian economic policy. The most likely explanation of the run-up of the real was the country’s obsession with commodity exports. The discovery of oil off the southeastern coast in 2006 has contributed to a dramatic expansion of oil exports, which have increased 45 percent since 2002. In addition, the partially state-owned mining giant Vale has become a world leader in mineral extraction and made up 16 percent of Brazilian exports in 2011.

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Agriculture and food security: Brazil’s chance to assume leadership among the BRICS?

Oliver Stuenkel – Post-Western World, 06/09/2013

The stark differences between Brazil’s and India’s agricultural productivity and their differing positions during trade negotiations in the past years are an often used argument of why South-South cooperation will always be an elusive dream. And indeed, India has often been accused of being a nay-sayer in the realm of agriculture, even by its fellow emerging powers.

It may then come as a surprise that agriculture and food security are among the first topics that emerged when the BRIC grouping began to discuss ways to cooperate. In fact, during the first BRIC Leaders Summit in 2009 in Yekaterinburg, a separate declaration on food security was issued, underlining the importance of the matter.

In the document, the BRICs professed to be “committed to opposing protectionism, establishing a just and reasonable international trade regime for agricultural products, and giving farmers from developing countries incentives to engage in agricultural production.” The 2-page document argues that “the developed and developing countries should address the food security issue according to the principle of common but differentiated responsibility”, a concept that would become a trademark of future BRICS declarations, particularly in the field climate change. Finally, the BRICs signaled their interest in cooperating by “sharing the best practices of operating successful public distribution programmes.”

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Where do relations between the U.S. and Brazil stand today?

Paulo Sotero - Inter-American Dialogue Latin America Advisor, 06/10/2013

Q: During a recent three-day visit to Brazil, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called for stronger ties between the two countries in areas such as education, technology, science and trade and said that 2013 will usher in a new era in bilateral relations between the countries. Where do U.S.-Brazil relations stand today? What’s been holding back stronger trade and economic ties to date, and what makes the vice president say 2013 will be much different? What are the most sensitive aspects of the bilateral relationship today that could derail closer ties in the future?

A: Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars:“After derailing in the wake of Brazil and Turkey’s failed mediation efforts on the Iranian nuclear program in 2010, Brazil-U.S. relations were put on a constructive path by Presidents Dilma Rousseff and Barack Obama. It has produced a few presidential meetings, policy framework initiatives and a tax information exchange agreement. The door is open for more. Vice President Biden’s statement reflects the optimistic view generated by the improved relationship, which is also illustrated by Obama’s invitation to Dilma Rousseff to make a state visit to Washington in late October, the first by a Brazilian president in more than 18 years. Obviously, the visit could generate exaggerated expectations, which carry their own risks. Whether Biden’s view will materialize depends on the presidential leadership of both countries to move the relationship beyond process and symbolism towards concrete and consequential decisions in key areas. As Brazil’s underperforming economy pressures the government to adopt an investment-driven economic growth agenda, there is a clear need and ample opportunities to further Brazil-U.S. bilateral cooperation with consequential agreements in science, technology, space, education, energy, defense, tax, investment and trade. A deal that would include the purchase of Boeing jet fighters by Brazil, mentioned as a possibility in press reports after Biden’s visit, is an example of a potential positive development in strategic engagement that would strengthen ties in a key high-value supply chain where Embraer is already present. In any case, the notion underlining the question, that bilateral Brazil-U.S. bilateral relations are headed to a new derailment, is obviously misplaced.”

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