Brazil-China local-currency trade deal may be signed next week

Paulo Winterstein – The Wall Street Journal, 03/21/2013

Brazil and China next week could sign an agreement that allows for trade of up to $30 billion to be carried out in local currencies, Trade Minister Fernando Pimentel said Thursday.

The two countries, which are taking part next week in a meeting with fellow BRICS members–an economic bloc consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa–are also in talks to extend the local-currency trade agreement to the entire bloc, Mr. Pimentel said.

Talks with China are the most advanced, he said, as the two countries already signed last year a memorandum of understanding that allowed for the local-currency trade. Next week, they could make permanent the accord, allowing for local-currency trade in the second half of this year, he said.

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Brazil-Argentina: it’s a love-hate relationship

Thalita Carrico – Financial Times Beyond BRICS, 03/12/2013

If Latin America was a gated community, Brazil and Argentina would be the neighbours that just cannot get along. Argentina would moan that Brazil keeps parking in its driveway and Brazil would complain that Argentina is building too big a fence around its backyard.

But in the real world of the region’s Mercosur trading bloc, things are a tad more complicated than that.

An agreement governing the automotive trade between the neighbours is supposed to result in free trade in the industry from July 1. Instead, Argentina is trying to go into reverse. Most controversially, it wants to force Brazilian carmakers to buy at least some of their parts from Argentina. (Now where could Argentina have learned that tric?) 

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EU and Brazil agree on a “speedy conclusion” of the trade pact with Mercosur

MecroPress, 01/25/2013

Brazilian and European leaders called on Thursday for the speedy conclusion of a free trade and cooperation agreement between the European Union and Mercosur. The call for action was made as Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff hosted European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Both the EU and Mercosur “expressed the strong political will to reach an accord,” Van Rompuy told reporters.

Negotiations have so far stumbled over differences on agriculture, especially European farm subsidies, which are seen as hindering Mercosur efficient agriculture.

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Brazil posts lowest trade surplus in 10 years

Bloomberg Businessweek/AP, 01/02/2013

Brazil says its 2012 trade surplus is the lowest in 10 years.

The Trade Ministry said Wednesday that Brazil, posted a surplus of $19.5 billion last year, compared to the $29.8 billion surplus registered in 2011.

Brazilian exports in 2012 totaled $242.6 billion, compared to the $256 billion one year earlier.

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Brazil economic activity grows 0.4 pct in July

Silvio Cascione – Reuters, 09/14/2012

Brazil’s economy kicked off the third quarter at a slightly stronger pace than expected, suggesting an incipient recovery is taking hold after a year-long campaign of government measures to stimulate growth, central bank data showed on Friday.

The central bank’s IBC-Br economic activity index rose 0.42 percent in July from June in seasonally adjusted terms. The median estimate in a Reuters survey of 12 analysts was for a rise of 0.30 percent.

June’s rise, however, was revised down to 0.61 percent from 0.75 previously.

The index, a gauge of activity in the farming, manufacturing and services sectors, rose 2.34 percent from the same period a year before, the bank added, accelerating sharply from a 0.99 percent gain in the previous month.

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Brazil, Largest Beef Exporter, to Discuss Chain of Production at International Conference of Cattle Feeders

PR Newswire, 8/16/2012

From the 11th to the 13th of September, Brazil will host the fifth edition of Interconf – International Conference of Cattle Feeders (www.interconf.org.br/en). The event will serve as a forum for discussions on the evolution of the meat chain and its impacts on productive processes. The congress is held by the Assocon (National Association of Cattle Feeders) and Canal Rural.

With an estimated herd of more than 200 million head of cattle, Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of beef, and has the largest part of its production concentrated in the Central-Western region – where Interconf will take place, in the city of Goiania, capital of the State of Goias. In 2011, approximately 12.1% of the cattle slaughtered (or 3.46 million) were terminated in confinement.

The quality of the Congress technical programming is one of the highlights of Interconf 2012. The event will occur over the course of three days, with two days of plenary sessions and one day in the field. For this edition there has been an overhaul of the issues to be discussed.

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Venezuela buys 6 jetliners from Brazil’s Embraer

Fox News Latino/EFE, 07/31/2012

Venezuela signed Tuesday a contract to buy six E-190 passenger jets from Brazilian manufacturer Embraer, with an option to buy 14 more, at a meeting parallel to President Hugo Chavez’s visit to Brasilia to take part in the summit of the Mercosur trade bloc.

The contract is worth $270 million and could reach $900 million if Venezuela goes through with the purchase of all 20 airliners, as was announced at the official ceremony attended by Chavez and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

The deal was signed by representatives of Embraer, the leading producer of airliners for regional flights, and by Venezuelan state airline Conviasa.

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Brazil’s Vale profit slumps on China, currency woes

Guillermo Parra-Bernal and Reese Ewing and Sabrina Lorenzi – Reuters, 7/26/2012

SAO PAULO, July 25 (Reuters) – Brazil’s Vale became on Wednesday the latest victim of China’s economic slowdown after second-quarter profit tumbled because of slowing demand for iron ore that will spill over into the coming quarters.

Net income at the world’s largest producer of the mineral hit its lowest level in more than two years, underscoring its dependence on Chinese purchases of its flagship product. Profit also plummeted after a weakening Brazilian currency lifted debt-servicing and the use of derivatives for hedging.

Vale earned $2.662 billion in the quarter, down 58.7 percent from a year
earlier, according to a securities filing on Wednesday. The result, the lowest
since the first quarter of 2010, missed the average $2.998 billion estimate of
10 analysts in a Reuters poll.

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Softs – sugar gains on Brazil, India crop woes; coffee edges lower

Forexpros, 7/9/2012

U.S. soft futures were mostly higher during early U.S. morning trade on Monday, with sugar prices firming on the back of concerns over crop conditions in top growers Brazil and India.
Meanwhile, coffee prices edged lower in thin rangebound trade, while cotton prices were higher as investors awaited the release of the USDA’s weekly crop progress report due later in the day.
On the ICE Futures U.S. Exchange, sugar futures for October delivery traded at USD0.2246 a pound, climbing 1%. It earlier rose by as much as 1.5% to trade at a session high of USD0.2250 a pound.
Prices hit a six-week high of USD22.68 a pound on July 5, as concerns that heavy rains in Brazil could damage sugarcane crops in the country’s center-south region boosted sentiment on the sweetener in recent weeks.
Brazil’s top sugar industry group Unica said last week that sugar production in the center-south region in the first half of June came in at 1.37 million tonnes, 32% below the same period last year, as rains “severely hampered” the cane harvest.

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Colombia, Brazil see booming trade, investment

Luis Jaime Acosta, Jack Kimball – Reuters, 08/04/2011

Colombia wants to double trade and increase investment with Latin American powerhouse Brazil, but tariffs and shipping costs remain obstacles, an investment conference was told on Thursday.

Brazil’s booming economy has increased its consumption across the commodity chain, and its companies, mainly in oil and coal, have already begun investing in Colombia, a major global producer of thermal coal and regionally of crude oil.

“There’s a special synergy, this integration with Brazil generates very important gains for both countries in all respects … South-South integration strengthens us,” Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos told an investment conference.

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