Brazil Portal

Brazil allocates $500,000 to help Haitians in Amazon region

Brazil Institute — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:44:00 +0000

EFE/LAHT, 01/31/2012

Brazil will allocate 900,000 reais ($514,000) to assistance programs for undocumented Haitian immigrants who arrived in the Amazon region in recent months, the government said Monday.

The aid will be channeled through the states of Acre and Amazonas, which is where the majority of the Haitians have settled, according to an announcement in the official gazette.

In recent months, several thousand Haitians entered Brazil to flee the misery and chaos in their native country, which was devastated in January 2010 by a powerful quake that killed some 300,000 people.

Latin America looks at West’s fiscal crises, and sees its own past

Brazil Institute — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:25:01 +0000

Simon Romero – New York Times, 01/27/2012

A subway station in São Paulo, Brazil, which has a thriving financial sector. Some analysts see the situation in the West as “Latin America, circa 1985.” Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

RIO DE JANEIRO — Sometimes it comes in the form of a news dispatch, like the item from Milan explaining how Italians fret about “the spread,” a term used to refer to the gap between their high borrowing costs and the lower interest rates for Germany.

The angst has included protests in Spain, images of rioters in London or the police using pepper spray to disperse demonstrators in California.

And, of course, there is the steady drip of reports focusing on default fears in Greece.

For Brazil Argentina is a “good problem”, no longer a “permanent problem”

Brazil Institute — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:21:12 +0000

Mercopress, 01/31/2012

Marco Aurelio Garcia, President Rousseff foreign affairs advisor. Mercopress

Argentina is “a good problem” for Brazil, said President Dilma Rousseff’s Foreign policy advisor Marco Aurelio Garcia ahead of another trade dispute when Argentina begins applying a new imports’ scheme that has been equally criticized by local and Brazilian manufacturers.

“If we are going to frame reality in a problems’ dialectic, let me tell you that Argentina is a problem, but a good problem for Brazil” said Garcia in an interview with the Buenos Aires daily Pagina 12.

“We have problems derived from economic misbalances” admitted the Brazilian official, “but we must learn how to correct them plus get accustomed to their existence and difficult solution”.

or Brazil Argentina is a “good problem”, no longer a “permanent problem”

Brazil may buy dollars, consider new currency policies, UBS says

Brazil Institute — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:16:21 +0000

Karen Eeuwens – Businessweek, 01/31/2012

Brazil’s central bank is likely to resume its dollar purchases and the Finance Ministry may introduce new foreign exchange policies after the real strengthened to less than 1.75 reais per dollar, UBS AG analysts Andre Carvalho and Eamon Aghdasi wrote in a report dated yesterday.

Such measures may cause the real to depreciate for a short period, before rising to 1.60 reais per dollar by the end of 2013, they said.

Brazilian policymakers’ high sensitivity to appreciation of the currency, low worries about inflation and increasing focus on economic growth suggest the announcement of such measures may be “fairly imminent”, according to the analysts.

Brazil remembers Jewish and Afro-descendant Shoah victims

Brazil Institute — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:12:52 +0000

JTA, 01/30/2012

Brazil’s president attended a Holocaust remembrance ceremony that honored Jewish and Afro-descendant victims.

President Dilma Rousseff and several Jewish and non-Jewish officials attended a Holocaust remembrance ceremony held Jan. 29 in Salvador, Brazil’s third largest city.

“We are here to express ourselves about a stain in the history of humankind. Remembering is a way to build the mechanisms to prevent it from happening again. The Holocaust, which some deny, will always stand as a paradigm against intolerance. Democratic societies have the power to fight crimes like the Holocaust so that they will not happen ever again,” said Rousseff.

Santander: Brazil lending to grow sharply in the next 5-10 years

Brazil Institute — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:10:29 +0000

Dow Jones/Fox Business, 01/31/2012

Overall lending by the Brazilian financial industry will rise sharply in the next five to 10 years, with annual credit growth outstripping economic expansion in Latin America’s biggest country, the president of the Brazilian unit of Spain’s Banco Santander (SAN.MC) said Tuesday.

“In general, we are going to see a sharp increase in lending over the next five to 10 years,” said Marcial Portela, president of Banco Santander Brasil (SANB4.BR), at a news conference. “We expect total Brazilian lending to grow each year at a rate two or three times faster than economic growth.”

According to Brazilian Central Bank figures, released last week, total lending by all Brazilian banks rose 19% in 2011 to 2.03 trillion Brazilian reais ($1.2 trillion). Brazilian gross domestic product rose in 2011 by an estimated 3.0%.

Rio officials probe cause of fatal building collapse

Brazil Institute — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:07:16 +0000

C.J. Schexnayder – Engineering News-Record, 01/30/2012

The collapse of the Liberty Building, shown in orange, impacted surrounding structures. Google Maps/ENR Art Dept.

The deadly collapse of three buildings in the historic center of Rio de Janeiro has launched a series of inquiries into the cause of the accident as officials continue to search for the bodies of victims.

The 20-story Liberty Building on Avenida 13 de Maio, located near Cinelandia Square in central Rio, fell at about 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 25. The debris crushed the nearby 10-story Columbus Building as well as a small four-story building that separated the two larger structures.

The death toll stands at 17, but authorities say five people remain missing. More than 45,000 tonnes of rubble created by the collapse has been removed from the site, and officials with the state’s emergency management office say they do not expect to find any other survivors.’

Brazil leader arrives in Cuba to talk trade, ties

Brazil Institute — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:01:17 +0000

Jeff Franks – Reuters, 01/30/2012

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff waves during an official visit to Cuba after arriving at Havana's Jose Marti airport January 30, 2012. REUTERS/Enrique de la Osa

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff arrived in Havana on Monday for a two-day visit focused on trade, but nagged by Cuba’s ever-present human rights issues.

She was scheduled to tour the port of Mariel near Havana, where Brazil is helping finance an $800 million renovation by Brazilian engineering giant Odebrecht; witness the signing of new trade agreements with the Communist island; and meet with President Raul Castro and possibly his older brother Fidel Castro.

Rousseff was greeted at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, then driven away without addressing reporters.

After-hour e-mail ban swells Brazil cost that business laments

Brazil Institute — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:58:03 +0000

Raymond Colitt – Bloomberg, 01/31/2012

Brazilians tired of answering their boss’s after-hours e-mails may be able to charge overtime based on a law businesses see hurting competitiveness in Latin America’s largest economy.

Using portable communications devices is equivalent to working in the office, according to legislation signed by President Dilma Rousseff last month.

The law is one more obstacle companies say they face in Brazil, where regulations mandating everything from employer- provided breakfasts to union contributions are a daily drag on efficiency bemoaned for decades as the “Custo Brasil,” or Brazil Cost. It takes less time to set up a business in Nigeria or Mongolia than it does Brazil, according to the World Bank, which ranked it No. 126 out of 183 countries in its 2012 competitiveness study.

Brazil to breathe life into faded Cuban sugar sector

Brazil Institute — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:53:13 +0000

Esteban Israel – Reuters, 01/30/2012

Brazilian builder Odebrecht plans to produce sugar in Cuba, the company said on Monday, as looser restrictions on foreign investment in the communist island raise hopes of a recovery in the once-booming sector after decades of decline.

News of the project came on the day Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff begins a mostly ceremonial official visit to the country, which has been under communist rule since the Fidel Castro-led revolution and an ensuing U.S. trade embargo.

Odebrecht will sign a “contract of productive administration” with Cuba’s state sugar company Grupo de Administracion Empresarial del Azucar to operate the 5 de Septiembre mill in Cienfuegos province on the south coast.