Brazil's booming economy
Flying too high for safety
A burst of Chinese-level growth cannot be sustained. But it hints at Brazil's new-found strength, and is perfectly timed for the presidential election
May 20th 2010 | SÃO PAULO | From The Economist print edition
NEW skyscrapers are going up along Avenida Faria Lima in the business district of São Paulo. Sales of computers and cars are booming, while a glut of passengers has clogged the main airports. Brazil created 962,000 new formal-sector jobs between January and April—the highest figure for these months since records began in 1992. Everything indicates that over the past six months the economy has grown at an annualised pace of over 10%. Even allowing for an expected slackening, many analysts forecast that growth in 2010 will be 7%—the highest rate since 1986.
The problem is that while it may be growing at Chinese speeds, Brazil is not China. Because it still saves and invests too little, most economists think it is restricted to a speed limit of 5% at the most, if it is not to crash. The growth spurt is partly the result of the stimulus measures taken by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government when the world financial crisis briefly tipped the country into recession late in 2008. The trouble, say critics, is that much of the extra government spending is turning out to be permanent—and so the economy is starting to resemble a Toyota with the accelerator stuck to the floor.
The strain is showing. Businesses are chasing after scarce skilled labour. Inflation for the 12 months to April reached 5.3%, above the Central Bank's target of 4.5%. Imports are set to top exports this year, for the first time since 2000, and the current-account deficit should widen to 3% of GDP.
The authorities are starting to worry. Last month the Central Bank raised its benchmark Selic interest rate by 0.75%, the first rise in nearly two years. Many economists in São Paulo believe that this one will be followed by others, taking the rate from its low of 8.75% to 13% by next year.
The government's critics say that lax fiscal policy is making the Central Bank's task harder, increasing the risk of the boom ending in a sharp slowdown next year. When he became president in 2003, Lula stuck to the sound fiscal policies he inherited from his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Thanks to faster growth and higher tax revenues, between 2003 and 2008 Lula's government managed to keep public debt in check even while expanding spending. By treating the recession as "a licence to spend", the government is now undermining the credibility it piled up, says Raul Velloso, a public-finance specialist in Brasilia.
Officials share those concerns—up to a point. The government has withdrawn nearly all of the tax breaks it enacted to boost demand during the recession. On May 13th ministers declared that they would shave 10 billion reais ($5.4 billion) from the running costs of the federal government this year. That followed a similar announcement of another 21 billion reais of cuts in March. But this hardly amounts to slamming on the brakes. The cuts are to the generous (and notional) budget approved by Congress. Even if implemented in full, they will merely slow the rate of increase in government spending, keeping it constant or slightly lower as a share of GDP, concedes Nelson Barbosa, a senior finance official.
The government is still injecting money into the economy in two controversial ways. First, the National Development Bank (BNDES), whose loans cost about half the Selic rate, has expanded its lending by almost half. It has been able to do this because the treasury granted it two long-term credits totalling 180 billion reais. Those credits, for which the BNDES has offered IOUs, have led to accusations of creative accounting. While adding to the government's gross debt, they have not driven up the more closely watched figure for public debt, net of assets: at 42.7% of GDP, this is back to its level of mid-2008, and is much lower than the debt burdens of European countries.
Second, the government has jacked up its payroll spending. The number of federal civil servants has increased fairly modestly since 2003 (by around 10%). But they have been treated generously: the total federal wage bill more than doubled in nominal terms between 2003 and 2009, while inflation was less than 50%. Lula has pushed up the minimum wage much faster than inflation too. That has helped to make the income distribution less skewed, and boosted consumer demand. But it has a knock-on effect on pension benefits.
Mr Barbosa insists that faster growth will allow the government to squeeze payroll and pension spending gently over the coming years. The BNDES helped sustain investment when the financial markets seized up. The latest bout of financial turmoil has seen the real depreciate by 5% or so this month. But Brazil's stockpile of international reserves means it is well-placed to withstand market panics. Mr Barbosa says that the critics should look at the long-term trend, under which real interest rates (ie, after inflation) have fallen from up to 20% in 2003 to between 5% and 10%. Once the new monetary squeeze is over they will fall further, he says.
Certainly many Europeans would love to have Brazil's problems. Its economy has acquired underlying strength. Companies are scurrying to satisfy the demand for consumer goods of a rapidly expanding lower-middle class, while China continues to suck in Brazil's exports of raw materials. Productivity is rising. Costs per unit of labour are increasing at only about half the rate of real wages, reckons José Roberto Mendonça de Barros, a consultant and former finance official.
But commodity prices are starting to weaken. Faster growth would be more assured if the government made room for lower interest rates and installed better infrastructure. The next president, elected in October, will have to tackle this. The economy's red-hot start to the election year has increased the chance that it will be Lula's candidate, Dilma Rousseff, who gets the chance to try.
Brazil, Turkey and Iran
Not just any deal will do
Have Brazil and Turkey helped solve a brewing nuclear crisis, or made it worse?
May 20th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
TO IRAN'S irrepressible president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the deal was a triumph for the powers of the future over "the tyrant powers [who] belong to the past". Others, tyrannically minded or not, have yet to see whether Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (flanking Mr Ahmadinejad above), really have succeeded in enticing Iran a step in from the cold in its row with the UN Security Council over its nuclear ambitions. Several years of on-off talks (mostly off, at Iran's insistence) between Mr Ahmadinejad's government and six other countries, America, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, have failed to budge Iran from its insistence that its suspect nuclear work will continue, no matter what.
Under the May 17th deal, Mr Ahmadinejad is to send abroad some of his low-enriched uranium stocks, in return for higher-enriched fuel rods Iran needs to replenish an ageing medical-research reactor. On the face of it, that resembles a bargain Iran had first struck last October with America, Russia, France and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear guardian, before it backed off. But the fear is that, well-meaning as the leaders of Turkey and Brazil may be, Iran is abusing their efforts to get out of a fix.
To those with past experience of Iran's tactics, both timing and terms of the new deal look deeply suspect. Iran is facing a fourth set of UN sanctions. Two days after the Tehran "breakthrough", a draft resolution agreed by the six countries Iran has been refusing to talk to, including previously reluctant Russia and China, was circulated to the rest of the Security Council. That was despite the claim by Turkey's foreign minister that the Tehran deal meant further sanctions were now unwarranted.
If voted through, the new resolution would add more names to a list of individuals, firms and banks sanctioned for their links to Iran's nuclear and missile programmes and slap an arms embargo on heavy weapons. Suspect shipments to and from Iran could be searched. Iran would find it much harder to get foreign uranium for its enrichment machines, which Mr Ahmadinejad claims he set spinning merely to produce under 5% low-enriched uranium for nuclear-power reactors (though Iran has none that can use it), while others suspect it may eventually be used to make the 90%-enriched stuff needed for a bomb.
Iran pooh-poohs sanctions, claiming even new ones won't make it give up its "right" to enrich uranium. But its leaders have been courting other Security Council members, especially Brazil and Turkey. For, whatever their economic impact, widely supported UN sanctions do give the lie to Iran's claims that it is the victim of a Western-inspired plot to deprive it of its right to nuclear energy, rather than being in the dock for what IAEA inspectors report have been serious violations of its nuclear safeguards. Iran also refuses point blank to answer more questions about activities that have little rational explanation except as part of a weapons effort.
Iran thus wants to block or delay a sanctions vote. But even if the October deal had gone through, harsher moves would have remained in play, both because their aim is to get Iran into wider talks than just those over fuel for its research reactor; and because, without pressure, Iran would be free to drag out talks uselessly. The October fuel deal was a gamble: Iran called it an acceptance of its "right" to uranium enrichment. But the rewards, had it chosen to negotiate seriously, were deemed worth the risk.
By shipping two-thirds of its then low-enriched uranium abroad, Iran would have been left, for perhaps six months while it rebuilt stocks, with less uranium in the country than would be needed, with further enrichment, for a breakout to a nuclear bomb. This, it was hoped, might create time for wider talks. More to the point, Russia's offer to enrich the uranium from under 5% to the almost 20% needed for the medical reactor, along with France's readiness to turn it into the needed fuel rods, mean Iran had no excuse to do the higher enrichment work itself. For it is a quirk of uranium enrichment that to get from 20% to 90% takes less effort than making the lesser-enriched stuff in the first place.
If a deal was worth trying then, surely it is worth trying now? But much has changed. Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium is bigger: only about half of it would be needed to produce the equivalent fuel load for the medical reactor. Iran could have a full bomb's-worth on hand again in no time. Earlier this year, Iran started its own 20% enrichment and insists that this will continue. That wipes out the hoped for non-proliferation gain, and may be a deal-breaker.
Meanwhile the terms of the new accord are vague. Mr Ahmadinejad is to set out his ideas to the IAEA within days. But then he can take all the time he likes to haggle over details with America, France, Russia and the IAEA. Under the old deal, the uranium would have gone directly to Russia, then France for reworking. Under the new one, Turkey will take custody of it. But Turkey has no way to enrich it or make it into fuel. Does Iran expect to get the 20% enriched fuel rods from another source, while its own uranium is under Turkish guard? Also, under the deal with Turkey and Brazil, Mr Ahmadinejad can decide whether the deal is going as he likes. If it isn't, Turkey must hand back his uranium forthwith.
For those trying to talk Iran out of potentially weapons-usable work, this seems to get them nowhere. But it could leave the Security Council split and make an end to the stand-off with Iran harder. Mr Ahmadinejad would be the winner.
Brazilian telecoms
Get off the line
Portugal Telecom and Spain's Telefónica squabble over Brazil
May 20th 2010 | PARIS | From The Economist print edition
"THE scale of Portugal Telecom is an asset for the country. We don't want a small company, we want a big one." So pronounced Portugal's prime minister, José Sócrates, this week, defending Portugal Telecom's rejection of a hostile bid from Spain's Telefónica for its share of Vivo, a fast-growing Brazilian mobile operator. Zeinal Bava, the boss of the Portuguese firm, added a warning that leaving Brazil would mean "amputating Portugal Telecom's future".
Yet such surgery may prove hard to resist, given Telefónica's financial clout. The Spanish firm offered €5.7 billion ($7.2 billion) in cash for the bit of Vivo that it does not own. That is equivalent to over 80% of the total market value of Portugal Telecom itself.
Nine years ago, the two Iberian firms launched a united assault on Brazil, forming a joint venture from seven assorted mobile units that they already controlled. The resulting entity, Vivo, now has the largest share of a valuable and expanding market. With 52m subscribers, Vivo has a substantial mobile business and contributes 46% of Portugal Telecom's revenues.
Although it is growing, the Brazilian market is also proving to be viciously competitive. Three main groups are battling for share in mobile and fixed lines: as well as the Spanish and Portuguese with Vivo (and Telefónica's other assets), there are Oi, a local player, and América Móvil, part of the empire of Mexico's Carlos Slim. Success will probably depend on consolidation and better integration of mobile and fixed-line units. Oi and América Móvil have already tried, but now Telefónica would like to merge Vivo with Telesp, its fixed-line operator. The resulting entity would cut costs and could offer customers bundled telecoms packages. Telefónica also needs to bolster Telesp, which is struggling as customers dump fixed lines for mobiles.
The partnership between Portugal Telecom and Telefónica soured in 2006-07 when the Spanish giant unexpectedly backed a Portuguese firm, Sonaecom, in a failed hostile bid for the national operator. Telefónica's goal then, as now, was to push Portugal Telecom out of Vivo, which it had planned to buy from a victorious Sonaecom. Things have quickly turned nasty this time. Last week Telefónica's finance director attacked Portugal Telecom for rejecting its bid without consulting shareholders, which he said raised questions about the firm's corporate governance. The Portuguese say that Telefónica is cynically taking advantage of the euro-zone financial crisis, which has reduced Portugal Telecom's market capitalisation.
If, as expected, Telefónica raises its bid for Vivo in the coming weeks, Portugal Telecom may be obliged to let its shareholders decide. Telefónica itself owns 10% of Portugal Telecom's shares, but may not be allowed to vote on the matter. A hard core of mainly Portuguese allies hold about 30% of the shares and foreign investors the rest. Since Telefónica's offer is so high relative to the value of Portugal Telecom, analysts reckon the Spaniards could even make an offer for the whole firm if its bid for Vivo goes nowhere. Another option for Telefónica could be to bid for TIM Brasil, a mobile firm owned by Telecom Italia, and add it to Vivo.
However bitterly the Portuguese resent the attempt to push them out of Brazil, resolving ownership of Vivo is just one episode in a far more important battle—that between Telefónica and América Móvil right across Latin America. Telefónica's Movistar subsidiary is expected to win additional wireless spectrum and a stronger position in Mexico, América Móvil's home market, later this year. América Móvil would not welcome a merger of Vivo and Telesp, which would strengthen Telefónica's base in Brazil.
Could Mr Slim again be the one to ride to the rescue? He stepped in last time around when the Spaniards had seemed poised to seize full control of Vivo, in 2006-07, eventually acquiring a 5% stake in Portugal Telecom and helping to defeat the combined assault of Sonaecom and Telefónica. Mr Bava, who is now on a whirlwind tour of foreign shareholders, could yet conclude that he should be dropping in on Mexico City.
Economic and financial indicators
May 20th 2010
From The Economist print edition
In America, the number of new houses on which construction began rose to an annual pace of 672,000 in April, 5.8% higher than in March. April's rate of housing starts was 40.9% higher than a year earlier.
The inflation rate in the euro area was 1.5% in April, up from 1.4% in March, and much higher than the 0.6% recorded in April 2009. But a measure of inflation that excludes food and fuel prices, which are relatively volatile, fell to 0.7% in April from 0.9% in March.
Inflation in Britain rose to 3.7% in April from 3.4% a month earlier. April's inflation rate was the highest since November 2008.
America bucked the rich-country trend of rising inflation. Prices fell by 0.1% in April from the previous month on a seasonally adjusted basis, making it the first month since March 2009 when prices have declined month-on-month. The annual inflation rate slowed to 2.2% in April from 2.3% in March. Excluding food and energy prices, core American inflation was 0.9% in April, the lowest in 49 years.
Spain's GDP in the first quarter rose by 0.1% compared with the previous three-month period, but was 1.3% lower than in the first quarter of 2009.
Japan's GDP grew at an annual rate of 4.9% in the three months to the end of March, beating growth of 3.8% during the previous quarter. Industrial growth in March from the previous month was revised upwards, from 0.3% to 1.2%.
CEO turnover rate
May 20th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
According to Booz & Company, a consultancy, 14.3% of the world's 2,500 biggest publicly listed companies got new bosses in 2009. This was marginally lower than 2008's turnover rate of 14.4%. The proportion of chief executives forced from office fell to 3.3% last year, its lowest level since 2003, and down from 5.1% in 2008. The financial sector saw the most bloodletting, with 5.2% of bosses fired and a turnover rate of 17.2%. Between 2008 and last year, the turnover of chief executives fell by 2.4 percentage points to 12.4% in North America, and rose slightly in Europe, to 15.2%. But Asian companies outside Japan have become increasingly prone to changing bosses. Turnover was 9.2% in 2007, but rose to 15.3% last year.
Platinum and palladium
May 20th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
According to Johnson Matthey, a precious-metals trader, global demand for platinum fell by 11.9% in 2009, to 7.04m ounces. Supplies of newly mined platinum also declined in 2009, by 20,000 ounces to 5.92m ounces. But these supplies—the bulk of them from South Africa, the world's largest producer of the stuff—were supplemented by 1.41m ounces of recycled platinum, ensuring that there was 285,000 ounces more around than was demanded. There was excess supply in the market for palladium, too. Demand declined by 6.3% to 7.7m ounces, 760,000 ounces less than global supply. Demand for platinum fell in most parts of the world, except in China, where it rose by over 50% to 2,210 ounces.
How hot is too hot in Brazil?
May 20, 2010 9:56pm
The word "overheating" dominates talk about Brazil's economy these days. Inflation and growth forecasts are being revised upwards, the central bank is widely expected to continue raising interest rates and the government last week announced R$10bn in spending cuts.
But Carlos Maggioli, the head of sales and trading at Itaú BBA, says that even if Brazil's economy grows as fast as 9 per cent, the threat of overheating won't kick in until growth accelerates past India and China.
If growth goes up to 10 per cent, "then you will see overheating," Mr Maggioli told beyondbrics in an interview at the investment bank's annual conference in New York. But that's unlikely, he added, because an infrastructure bottleneck will keep growth in the range of 5 to 9 per cent.
"The economics look extremely strong. I don't think the stock market is pricing that right now," he said.
Itaú Unibanco recently raised its GDP growth forecast to 7.5 per cent in 2010 from 6.5 per cent, and Guilherme da Nobrega, an Itaú economist, told Bloomberg yesterday that the estimate may be raised to as much as 8.5 per cent.
Such fast growth would likely put a lot of pressure on prices, since Brazil's potential or non-inflationary growth rate is seen by most economists at between 4 and 5 per cent a year. Earlier this month, Guido Mantega, the finance minister, told the FT's Jonathan Wheatley that he government has set a 6 per cent limit on growth.
Low-income housing boom
As for what's driving growth, Mr Maggioli points to a shift in demand to the lower end of Brazil's system of economic classification – the D and E classes, who earn less than R$1,115 (US$598) a month, according to the Getulio Vargas Foundation.
This is "a consumption trend we haven't seen in the last 20 years," Mr Maggioli said, and is fueling the low-income housing sector.
Housing credit is expanding rapidly: Caixa Econômica Federal, the government-controlled savings bank, made R$45bn in home loans in 2009 – R$25bn more than in 2008 and R$20bn more than it had projected
Add to that the 2m low-income homes scheduled to be built by 2014 through the federal "Mi Casa, Mi Vida" housing programme, and it's not hard to see why real estate is attracting attention.
Indeed, Bloomberg reports today that billionaire investor Sam Zell's Equity International is stepping up its investment in Brazilian property to the tune of $500m.
"Our enthusiasm for Brazil could not be higher," [Equity International chief executive Gary] Garrabrant, who co-founded Equity International with Zell in 1999, said in a May 18 interview in Sao Paulo. "You've got this local demand that's unparalleled."
Rising powers do not want to play by the west's rules
By Philip Stephens
Published: May 20 2010 22:49 | Last updated: May 20 2010 22:49
There are two ways of looking at the efforts of Turkey and Brazil to resolve the dispute about Iran's nuclear programme. One dismisses the initiative as collusion with Tehran's attempt to derail a fourth round of United Nations sanctions; another welcomes a recognition in Ankara and Brasilia that rising powers have a stake in sustaining a rules-based global order.
Unsurprisingly, the default response in the west has been the former. Reactions in Washington, London and elsewhere to the agreement brokered by Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ranged along a spectrum from condescension to intense irritation. Ankara and Brasilia, at best, were dupes.
The bargain struck by the two leaders with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, if implemented, would see Iran transfer to Turkish custody a large proportion of its stockpile of enriched uranium. In return, Tehran would be supplied with the more highly-enriched material used in medical isotopes. The risk of an Iranian bomb would be reduced, while Tehran would retain what it sees as a sovereign right to mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle.
There is nothing novel about the idea. It is modelled on an offer made last autumn by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The difference is that this first proposal envisaged the Iranian uranium would be sent to Russia.
The latest plan raises plenty of legitimate questions. Among other things it does not tell us what Iran proposes to do with the rest of its uranium stockpile and why it is continuing to produce more. Tehran has also yet to explain why it is now enriching to a higher concentration.
The timing of the deal raises the justified suspicion that Iran's primary objective is to upset the US-led move towards further UN sanctions. During many years of negotiations with the west, Tehran has hardly been subtle in its tactics: the pattern has been one of apparent concessions at moments of pressure followed by lengthy prevarication and enrichment as usual. On a generous interpretation, one western diplomat told me, Mr Erdogan and Mr Lula da Silva were naive.
Against this background, the US, France and Britain have unveiled their plans for the latest sanctions – this time directed at Iran's Revolutionary Guard – with obvious satisfaction. Turkey and Brazil might think their deal had abrogated the need for further punitive measures, but China and Russia had been persuaded otherwise.
Perhaps I am overly cynical but I detect a certain petulance here. Turkey and Brazil have temporary seats on the Security Council, and it is as if the permanent members are affronted the two nations should presume to strike out on their own.
The Iranian nuclear issue, you could almost hear diplomats saying, is an argument that has to be settled by the established powers. If others want to help that is fine – but they should do so by backing the west's plan rather than coming up with crackpot ideas of their own.
There are several reasons why this is short-sighted. Most obviously the permanent five have got just about nowhere so far. Even those arguing that sanctions are the only way to coerce Iran into toeing the UN line do not really believe the measures can work on their own. If Tehran really has decided to build the bomb, a squeeze on the Revolutionary Guard will not change its mind.
It is evident, too, that in the event that the present regime were to change course and seek an accommodation on its nuclear programme, ways would have to be found to ensure it was not seen as capitulating to the great, and lesser, Satans of the west. A deal struck with a neighbouring Islamic state might – and I emphasise the might – be a route out of the impasse.
For Mr Erdogan's government the attempt to broker a deal is a natural extension of Ankara's active regional diplomacy. The last few years have seen a marked rise in both Turkey's economic prosperity and its political confidence. As France, Germany and others have found reasons to exclude it from the European Union, Turkey has turned eastwards.
Ankara's rising stature in the region has been based on the brilliantly simple proposition that nations that want to project influence should start by fixing their own disputes. Mr Erdogan has settled long-running arguments with Syria and Iraq and sought to lower tensions in the Caucasus.
The neighbourhood problem-solving has not been universally successful but it has been sufficiently so to turn Turkey into a big regional player. Mr Erdogan's government now shows the political confidence that comes with understanding that it has opened up options for itself beyond frustrating and fruitless negotiations in Brussels about the terms under which it might at some point qualify as a "European" power. Here, I think, lies a source of the irritation in Washington and elsewhere about the latest initiative.
The off-stated ambition of western governments is that the world's rising powers should bear some of the burden of safeguarding international security and prosperity. The likes of China, India and, dare one say, Turkey and Brazil, are beneficiaries of a rules-based global order and, as such, should be prepared to contribute. They should, in a phrase coined some years ago by Robert Zoellick, act as stakeholders in the system.
Seen from Ankara or Brasilia, or indeed from Beijing or New Delhi, there is an important snag in this argument. They are not being invited to craft a new international order but rather to abide by the old (western) rules. As I heard one Chinese scholar remark this week, it is as if the rising nations have been offered seats at a roulette table only on the strict understanding that the west retains ownership of the casino.
As it happens, the US understands better than Europeans the shifting distribution of power. Barack Obama's administration has been thinking hard about the new geopolitical geometry, even as Europe remains trapped in its anxiety to cling on to the old Euro-atlantic order.
In its excellent exercise in crystal-ball gazing, Global Trends 2025, the US National Intelligence Council presciently included a scenario in which Brazil acts as a mediator at a moment of crisis in the Middle East. Imagining a different future, though, is not the same as coming to terms with it. If the west wants global order, it has to get used to others having a say in making the rules.
Turkish PM to visit Brazil as UN mulls Iran sanctions
BRASILIA - The leaders of the two UN Security Council countries holding out against new sanctions on Iran, Turkey and Brazil, are to meet next week, diplomats from both countries told AFP.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will make a three-day visit to Brazil from next Wednesday, during which he will see Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, they said.
Erdogan and Lula this week struck a deal with Iran over its nuclear program they thought would defuse a push by the United States to impose fresh sanctions on Tehran in the UN Security Council.
But Washington and its allies dismissed Tehran's agreement to send around half its stock of low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for better-enriched nuclear fuel.
On Tuesday, the United States submitted a UN resolution calling for an international clampdown on Iranian banks, shipping and business dealings that could be linked to its nuclear activities.
Brazil and Turkey on Wednesday issued a joint letter demanding their agreement with Iran be considered, and that the sanctions push be dropped.
The countries are two of the 10 non-permanent Security Council members without the veto power of the five permanent members over resolutions. The resolution needs nine votes in the 15-seat Security Council chamber to pass.
Erdogan is to be in Sao Paulo next Wednesday to inaugurate a new Turkish consulate and speak at a business conference, according to the diplomats.
On Thursday, he was to see Lula over a working lunch in Brasilia.
On Friday, the Turkish leader was to attend a UN-sponsored Global Forum on the Alliance of Civilizations, a conference bringing together Western and Muslim nations, in Rio.
America Moves the Goalposts
By ROGER COHEN| Published: May 20, 2010
NEW YORK — John Limbert, once a U.S. hostage in Tehran, now charged with Iranian affairs at the State Department, has given a good description of the caricatures that bedevil American-Iranian non-relations.
Americans see Iranians as "devious, mendacious, fanatical, violent and incomprehensible." Iranians, in turn, see Americans as "belligerent, sanctimonious, Godless and immoral, materialistic, calculating," not to mention bullying and exploitive.
That's Ground Zero in the most traumatized relationship on earth and the most tantalizing. Tantalizing because Iran and the United States are unnatural enemies with plenty they might agree on if they ever broke the ice. Limbert, a bridge-builder, has spent half a lifetime trying to deliver that message. It never flies. Poisonous history gets in the way. So do those that profit from poison.
If all the mistrust needed further illustration, it has just been provided by the Brazilian-Turkish deal on Iran's low enriched uranium (LEU), the peevish U.S. reaction to it, and the apparent determination of the Great Powers, led by the Obama administration, to burrow deeper into failure.
I believed Obama was ready to think anew on Iran. It seems not. Presidents must lead on major foreign policy initiatives, not be bullied by domestic political considerations, in this case incandescent Iran ire on the Hill in an election year.
More on that later, but first let's take a cold look at the Brazilian and Turkish leaders' achievement in Tehran, how it relates to an earlier American near-deal, and what all this says about a world undergoing significant power shifts.
I'll take the last point first. Brazil and Turkey represent the emergent post-Western world. It will continue to emerge; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should therefore be less trigger-happy in killing with faint praise the "sincere efforts" of Brasilia and Ankara.
The West's ability to impose solutions to global issues like Iran's nuclear program has unraveled. America, engaged in two inconclusive wars in Muslim countries, cannot afford a third. The first decade of the 21st century has delineated the limits of U.S. power: It is great but no longer determinative.
Lots of Americans, including the Tea Party diehards busy baying at wolves, are angry about this. They will learn that facts are facts.
Speaking of facts, I must get a little technical here. Iran has been producing, under International Atomic Energy Agency inspection, LEU (enriched to about 5 percent). It is this LEU that would have to be turned into bomb-grade uranium (over 90 percent) if Iran were to produce a nuclear weapon. The idea behind the American deal in Geneva last October was to get a big chunk of LEU out of Iran to build confidence, create some negotiating space, and remove material that could get subverted. In exchange, Iran would later get fuel rods for a medical research reactor in Tehran.
Iran, doing the bazaar routine, said yes, maybe and no, infuriating Obama. Iran now wanted the LEU stored on Iranian soil under I.A.E.A. control, phased movement of the LEU to this location, and a simultaneous fuel rod exchange. Forget it, Obama said.
Well, Turkey and Brazil have now restored the core elements of the October deal: a single shipment of the 1,200 kilograms of LEU to a location (Turkey) outside Iran and a one-year gap — essential for broader negotiations to begin — between this Iranian deposit in escrow and the import of the fuel rods.
And what's the U.S. response? To pursue "strong sanctions" (if no longer "crippling") against Iran at the United Nations; and insist now on a prior suspension of enrichment that was not in the October deal (indeed this was a core Obama departure from Bush doctrine).
Obama could instead have said: "Pressure works! Iran blinked on the eve of new U.N. sanctions. It's come back to our offer. We need to be prudent, given past Iranian duplicity, but this is progress. Isolation serves Iranian hard-liners."
No wonder Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, is angry. I believe him when he says Obama and U.S. officials encouraged Turkey earlier this year to revive the deal: "What they wanted us to do was give the confidence to Iran to do the swap. We have done our duty."
Yes, Turkey has. I know, the 1,200 kilograms now represents a smaller proportion of Iran's LEU than in October and it's no longer clear that the fuel rods will come from the conversion of the LEU in escrow. But that's small potatoes when you're trying to build a tenuous bridge between "mendacious" Iranians and "bullying" Americans in the interests of global security.
The French and Chinese reactions — cautious support — made sense. The American made none, or did only in the light of the strong Congressional push for "crushing" sanctions. Further sanctions will not change Iran's nuclear behavior; negotiations might. I can only hope the U.S. bristling was an opening gambit.
Last year, at the United Nations, Obama called for a new era of shared responsibilities. "Together we must build new coalitions that bridge old divides," he declared. Turkey and Brazil responded — and got snubbed. Obama has just made his own enlightened words look empty.
Zell's Firm Raising $500 Million for Brazil Property (Update4)
May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor Sam Zell's Equity International is seeking to raise about $500 million to step up investment in Brazilian real estate, betting interest rate increases will fail to stem demand as the economy grows at the fastest pace in two decades.
The firm will invest as much as two-thirds of the money in Brazilian companies tied to the residential and commercial property industries and the rest in other countries outside the U.S., Chief Executive Officer Gary Garrabrant said. The new funds will bring the Chicago-based company's total invested capital to about $2 billion.
"Our enthusiasm for Brazil could not be higher," Garrabrant, who co-founded Equity International with Zell in 1999, said in a May 18 interview in Sao Paulo. "You've got this local demand that's unparalleled."
Rising incomes among Brazil's burgeoning middle class will ensure that a cycle of rate increases won't suppress housing demand, Garrabrant, 53, said. The economy will grow 6.3 percent this year, according to a central bank survey published this week. Brazilians' average monthly income has risen close to 40 percent in the past five years to about 1,400 reais, according to the census bureau.
Zell is expanding in Brazil after Equity International sold part of its stake in Gafisa SA, the country's second-largest homebuilder by revenue, last week. The BM&FBovespa Real Estate index tumbled 23 percent this year through yesterday as policy makers lifted the benchmark interest rate in April for the first time since 2008.
Gafisa Stake
Selling Gafisa shares doesn't signal that Equity International is bearish on Brazilian real estate, Garrabrant said. The firm sold the equivalent of about 18 million Gafisa common shares, worth $123 million based on May 12 closing prices, and now holds 30.1 million, or 7.2 percent of the total, according to a May 13 statement from Gafisa.
Equity International bought a 32 percent stake in the builder for $50 million in 2005 and Garrabrant remains the Sao Paulo-based company's chairman.
"This is, for 10 years, what we do: we invest in businesses," he said. "And then at appropriate points in time we'll monetize our position. It doesn't mean we have any less enthusiasm for Gafisa."
Brazilian homebuilders rallied today in Sao Paulo trading for the first time in six days. MRV Engenharia & Participacoes SA led gains, surging 7.6 percent to 10.79 reais while Gafisa rose 3.1 percent to 10.26 reais.
'Battle-Tested'
Garrabrant said Equity International is not concerned about growth prospects in "battle-tested" Brazil as Europe's debt crisis stokes speculation the global recovery will falter.
"This is nothing compared to what took place in past decades," he said. Brazilian inflation peaked at more than 6,800 percent in 1990, while in mid-May this year it was at 5.26 percent, the government's statistics agency said today.
Brazilian builders are inexpensive compared with "overvalued" U.S. real-estate companies, Garrabrant said. The BM&FBovespa Real Estate gauge traded at nine times earnings yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
"There are no constraints to growth for the homebuilding sector," he said. "Fundamentals are way ahead of share prices. It's natural that interest rates will rise in the short term."
Higher Rates
The Selic rate was increased to 9.5 percent on April 28 and policy makers may push it to 10.25 percent next month, according to the median estimate in a central bank survey.
Garrabrant said Brazil's real-estate industry will benefit from economic and political changes. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has helped lift 19 million people out of poverty and more than doubled the monthly minimum wage to 510 reais since taking office in 2003. The government's "My House My Life" program is funding the construction of 2 million homes for low- income families by 2014.
The nation's middle class last year increased to 53 percent of the population of 200 million from 42 percent in 2002, Finance Minister Guido Mantega said last month.
At least 1.5 million new households are formed in Brazil each year while builders produce about half that number of housing units, Garrabrant said.
Equity International may invest in Colombia for the first time with its new $500 million fund, the firm's fifth, Garrabrant said. President Alvaro Uribe has boosted investor confidence, he said, by cutting the murder and kidnapping rates since taking office in 2002.
Demand in Colombia
Colombia has "great demand" for affordable and middle- income housing, he said.
The firm is also looking at opportunities in China and "frontier markets" including Vietnam, Indonesia and Morocco. Equity International sold its investments in Ukraine and Venezuela because of political risk, Garrabrant said. In 2008, it sold its holding in Desarrolladora Homex SAB, now Mexico's largest homebuilder.
Garrabrant, who began his career in the real-estate division at First Chicago Bank, and Zell created their company to invest in real-estate businesses outside the U.S. Zell three years ago sold his Equity Office Properties Trust for $39 billion just as commercial property prices were peaking. He also orchestrated a buyout of media company Tribune Co.
Beyond Gafisa, Equity International holds a stake in BR Malls Participacoes SA, Brazil's biggest owner of shopping malls, and bought an 8.5 percent stake in Brazilian Finance & Real Estate Participacoes SA last year to develop the country's mortgage market.
"There are less than 400,000 mortgages in Brazil -- I think there are 400,000 mortgages on the Upper East Side of Manhattan," Garrabrant said. "Will the Brazilians catch up? No question."
--Editors: Alan Mirabella, Lester Pimentel
Trichet's Pain Is Meirelles's Gain as Rates Decline (Update2)
May 20 (Bloomberg) -- The debt crisis confounding European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet is helping his Brazilian counterpart Henrique Meirelles tame inflation expectations in Latin America's biggest economy.
Yields on Brazil's interest rate-futures contracts due in January have fallen 25 basis points, or 0.25 percentage point, to 10.95 percent today from a 15-month high on May 3. The yield has dropped five straight days, the longest stretch since January, as commodities slid and prospects that global growth will slow led traders to bet Meirelles needs fewer rate increases to curb inflation.
"The sharp decline in commodity prices for the first time makes people think that the external environment is going to slow the local economy down to a certain extent," said Guillermo Osses, who helps oversee $50 billion in emerging- market assets at Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co., manager of the world's biggest bond fund. "People are starting to think that maybe we're not going to have that much tightening."
Traders have trimmed their year-end expectation for benchmark borrowing costs to about 12 percent from about 12.75 percent at the end of April, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Meirelles, 64, lifted the overnight rate 75 basis points last month to 9.5 percent, the first increase since 2008, to cool an economy that analysts forecast will grow at its fastest pace in two decades this year.
Commodities Rout
Commodities, which make up 41 percent of Brazilian exports, plunged 12 percent since mid-April to a seven-month low as the $1 trillion rescue package arranged by European policy makers failed to reverse a jump in borrowing costs for Greece, Spain and Portugal, according to the UBS Bloomberg CMCI raw materials index. Trichet, 67, is leading an effort by central banks in the region to buy the governments' bonds.
Europe is Brazil's largest export market, buying more than 20 percent of its overseas sales, according to government data. About 55 percent of foreign direct investment in Brazil in the past three years came from Europe, according to Barclays Plc.
"The crisis could be more wide-spread and longer-lasting, the global growth could be softer, and there's repercussions for domestic activity as well," said Marcelo Salomon, an economist with Barclays in Sao Paulo. "There's stress on the rate market as people reassess the total amount of tightening."
Salomon forecasts the central bank will raise the overnight rate to 11.75 percent by August and leave it at that level through year-end.
Credit-Default Swaps
The extra yield investors demand to hold Brazilian dollar bonds instead of U.S. Treasuries widened 14 basis points today to 244. The gap is within five basis points of a three-month high reached May 6 on concern Greece's debt crisis is deepening.
The cost of credit-default swaps to protect against a default on Brazilian debt for five years rose two basis points to 142 yesterday, according to data compiled by CMA DataVision. Credit-default swaps pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a government or company fail to adhere to its debt agreements.
Brazil's real sank 3 percent against the dollar today, marking its sixth straight day of declines, the longest losing streak since October 2008. The real has dropped 7.4 percent this year after soaring 33 percent in 2009.
Europe's debt turmoil will only have a "marginal" effect on Brazil and policy makers will have to raise the benchmark overnight rate as much as 350 basis points to "re-anchor" inflation expectations, said Paulo Vieira da Cunha, a former central bank director who is now a partner at Tandem Global Partners LLC in New York.
Spending Cuts
Banco Central do Brasil said the European crisis will be taken into account in future policy decisions, according to the minutes of its April 27-28 meeting published May 6.
Central bankers "made it very clear that any worsening of the fiscal situation in the euro zone could affect the tightening," said Marcelo Saddi Castro, chief investment officer at SulAmerica Investimentos, who manages 15 billion reais in Sao Paulo.
A government plan unveiled last week to cut spending by 10 billion reais is also helping drive down yields on rate futures, Salomon said. Finance Minister Guido Mantega said May 13 that the spending cuts are "a strong and quick tool" to curb growth and inflation.
'Deflationary Forces'
Analysts predict the economy will expand 6.3 percent this year, the fastest pace since 1986, according to a central bank survey published this week. Itau Unibanco Holding SA, Brazil's biggest bank by market value, may raise its growth estimate to as much as 8.5 percent from 7.5 percent, economist Guilherme da Nobrega said yesterday in an interview in New York.
Analysts in the survey held their 2011 inflation forecast at 4.8 percent for a fifth straight week while raising their 2010 prediction to 5.54 percent from 5.5 percent. The central bank targets an annual rate of 4.5 percent.
A government report today showed that consumer prices rose 0.63 percent in the April 14-to-May 13 period, more than the 0.58 percent median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The annual inflation rate climbed to 5.3 percent, above the central bank's 4.5 percent target.
"Inflation is coming to the forefront much faster than expected, but the debt crisis unleashes deflationary forces," said Michael Roche, an emerging-market strategist at MF Global Holdings Ltd., a New York-based broker. "The market is building a premium for a softer tightening environment."
Brazil Mid-May Inflation Quickens More Than Expected (Update1)
May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil's inflation quickened more than expected in the month through mid-May, cementing expectations that the central bank will raise the benchmark interest rate 0.75 percent for a second straight meeting to prevent the economy from overheating.
Consumer prices as measured by the IPCA-15 index rose 0.63 percent in the April 14 to May 13 period, up from 0.48 last month, the government's statistics agency said today. The index rose more than the median estimate of a 0.58 percent rise in a Bloomberg survey of 38 economists.
Brazil's fastest economic expansion in more than two decades is stoking inflation and prompting policy makers to raise borrowing costs after keeping the Selic at a record low for nine months to fuel growth. Policy makers will increase the benchmark rate for a second straight meeting in June in a bid to rein in consumer prices that have exceeded the government's 4.5 percent target in each month this year.
"This means monetary policy tightening is due to continue over the course of this year," said Marcelo Salomon, an economist with Barclays Plc in Sao Paulo.
The yield on the interest rate future contract maturing January 2012, the most traded today on Sao Paulo's BM&F exchange, fell two basis points to 12.14 percent at 8:45 a.m. New York time. The real dropped 2.7 percent to 1.8773 per U.S. dollar.
'Vigorous' Action
Brazil's central bank became the first in Latin America to raise rates in more than a year on April 28, increasing the benchmark Selic rate to 9.5 percent from a record low 8.75 percent.
"We maintain our view that there are going to be three more 75 basis-point movements, taking the Selic rate to 11.75 percent," Salomon said.
Inflation in the 12 months through mid-May quickened to 5.26 percent, up from 5.22 percent a month earlier, the national statistic agency said.
Traders are betting the central bank will raise the Selic by 0.78 percentage point at their June 8-9 meeting, according to Bloomberg estimates based on interest rate futures contracts.
Central bank President Henrique Meirelles said April 25 that policy makers are prepared to take "vigorous" action to prevent the economy from overheating.
To cool the economy in tandem with higher lending rates, Finance Minister Guido Mantega this month said the government will cut 10 billion reais ($5.4 billion) in spending.
V-Shaped Rebound
Key indicators show Latin America's largest economy is rebounding strongly from the global financial crisis. Retail sales increased 15.7 percent in March from a year earlier, while industrial production grew 19.7 percent.
Itau-Unibanco Holding SA may raise its 2010 growth forecast to as high as 8.5 percent, the bank's economist, Guilherme da Nobrega, said yesterday. Brazil's biggest bank by market value last week raised its forecast for growth to 7.5 percent this year and 4.8 percent in 2011.
Gross domestic product will expand 6.3 percent in 2010, a central bank weekly survey of about 100 economists published May 17 showed. That would be the fastest expansion since 1986, when the economy grew 7.49 percent.
The same survey shows economists expect the central bank to raise the Selic by 75 basis points to 10.25 percent next month and 11.75 percent by year-end.
Euro fiscal crisis and local inflation tarnish Brazilian glitter
Brazil's Bovespa stocks index and the Real lost ground for a sixth straight session Thursday as investors continued to sell local assets given the depressed global economic outlook following on fears about the Euro fiscal crisis and disappointing data on the health of the US economy.
Friday, May
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2010 - 03:40 UTC
Bovespa was down 2.5% at 58,192 points after ending at 59,689 points Wednesday. With Thursday decline, the index has reached its lowest level since Sept. 9 and is down by 15.2% so far this year.
The Brazilian currency Real also slipped 1% ending at 1.861 to the US dollar.
A sustained weakening of the Euro brought continued negative impact for Brazilian materials sector shares, as prices of key commodities continued recent declines threatening the country's export. Making matters worse the US Labor Department on Thursday reported jobless claims rose 25,000 in the week ending May 15 to 471,000.
Locally, the market pondered a continued acceleration in inflation. Brazil's IBGE statistics institute reported IPCA consumer price inflation advanced by 0.63% in early May from 0.48% in April. The figure brought 12-month inflation to 5.26%.
The surging inflation has helped stoke concerns Brazil's central bank will be forced to take a hard line in a recently begun monetary-policy tightening cycle. Brazil's Central bank raised the country's reference Selic rate 75 basis points last month to 9.5% annually. The hike was the Central bank first in nearly 20 months.
According to market estimates, the Selic rate is seen rising about 225 basis points by the end of this year to 11.75% annually.
However next October Brazil goes to the polls to elect a new president and policy makers could be reluctant to press on the brakes too hard or suddenly.
While Brazilian economic growth prospects appear to remain good this year, with forecasts above 7%, analysts note local markets still are a ripe target for capital withdrawals by international players seeking to send funds to safe-haven investments elsewhere.
To that effect former president of the Central Bank Arminio Fraga warned Brazil isn't prepared for economic growth of 6% or 7% a year because of inflationary pressures and infrastructure "bottlenecks".
In an interview with O Estado de Sao Paulo Arminio Fraga said all the "mature" global economies are in a "very worrying fiscal situation" and the financial crisis "may worsen".
Fraga said the situation won't lead to the end of the Euro unless there is a "gigantic collective error in economic policy".
Earlier this week the Central Bank index of economic activity said the Brazilian economy was up 2.38% in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2009 and 9.84% over the first quarter a year ago.
Finance Minister Guido Mantega said Wednesday that the Brazilian economy would generate two million formal jobs in 2010 after having created almost one million in the first four months, almost the same as in the whole of 2009.
Petrobras leading Latinamerican corporation based on sales volume
Petrobras, Brazil's government managed oil and gas corporation rates as the Latinamerican corporation with the largest volume of sales, according to consultants Economática. The top ranked include six Brazilian companies, three Mexican and one from Colombia.
Petrobras sales in 2009 reached the equivalent of 104.9 billion US dollars followed by Mexico's America Movil with 30.2 billion. Two other Brazilian corporations, Vale Doce linked to the mining industry and petrochemical Ultrapar figured in third and fourth places with 27.8 billion and 20.7 billion.
Consultants Economática rated the top 30 Latinamerican on sales volumes based on the corporate balance sheet of last year from 776 Latinamerican corporations.
Sixth rates Wal-Mart Mexico with sales of 20.69 billion US dollars followed by Brazil's meats' giant JBS-Friboi, 19.7 billion. The only Colombian corporation in the first ten is the government managed Ecopetrol with sales of 18.1 billion USD in seventh place.
The list of the first ten is completed with Brazil's Telemar NL, with sales of 17.1 billion and steel maker Gerdau, 15.25 billion.
Among the 30 Latinamerican corporations, 16 are Brazilian, 7 Mexican, four Chilean, two from Argentina and one Colombian.
The first Chilean company in the list is Enesis, ranked 15 and with sales of 11.99 billion USD and the first from Argentina, oil and gas corporation YPF, ranked 22, with sales of 8.9 billion.
Total sales of the top 30 Latam corporations in 2009 reached 488.738 billion USD which is 14% higher than in 2008 points out Economática.
LA ECONOMIA BRASILEÑA: ASOMBRO ENTRE ECONOMISTAS LOCALES Y EXTRANJEROS
Impactante crecimiento de Brasil en el primer trimestre: 9,84%
Según el Banco Central, el dato indicaría que la economía del gigante sudamericano trepará un mínimo de 6% este año. Y lograría la mayor tasa en un cuarto de siglo. Pero la novedad también preocupa porque se teme que genere inflación.
Por: Eleonora Gossman | Fuente: SAN PABLO. CORRESPONSAL
"¿Qué cree usted que deberíamos hacer en Grecia?", le preguntó el premier griego George Papandreu a su colega Lula da Silva cuando se encontraron hace dos días en Madrid. Quería saber si había alguna receta especial del nuevo "milagro brasileño" que permita al convaleciente país europeo salir de una crisis agónica. El brasileño, sorprendido, le respondió: "Ah, disculpe pero no soy quién para dar consejos". Lo cierto es que ayer se difundió una cifra apabullante del crecimiento productivo de Brasil en el primer trimestre del año: 9,84%.
La información brindada por el Banco Central asombró a economistas locales e internacionales. Ya se hablaba del "recalentamiento" de la economía brasileña, al punto que se barajó entre las consultoras privadas un aumento del Producto Bruto Interno (PBI) para 2010 de hasta 7,5 por ciento. El gobierno brasileño tenía, de hecho, indicios sobre ese desempeño y por eso, hace una semana, arbitró un plan de contingencia para reducir inmediatamente los gastos del gobierno en más de 5.000 millones de dólares, sin afectar -dijeron en Brasilia- las inversiones en obras públicas. Es que si se mantuviera el ritmo de evolución económica, Brasil crecería en 2010 9,5 por ciento. No es algo que desee el tándem integrado por el ministro de Hacienda, Guido Mantega, y el titular del Banco Central, Henrique Meirelles. Hasta ahora han dirigido con una envidiable eficiencia, algo que admite hasta la oposición. La razón, según dijeron ambos, es evitar que un consumo excesivo provoque una presión inflacionaria. Y sobre esto Lula, Mantega y Meirelles mantienen una coincidencia: no permitir el desmadre de los precios, aun sea a costa de poner el pie en el freno.
Ayer, el secretario de Política Económica Nelson Barbosa salió a defender que no existe un "super calentamiento" de la economía. Para el secretario del Tesoro Nacional Arno Augustin también esa expresión es excesiva. Declaró además que hay que ser muy cautos a la hora de cortar gastos. "Las medidas tienen que ser cuidadosamente contractivas" porque hay una crisis mundial en marcha que podría ser contraproducente si se quiere desacelerar más allá de lo necesario. Por otra parte, ambos funcionarios indicaron que el gran crecimiento del primer trimestre está relacionado con la gran caída del mismo período de 2009. "Es una consecuencia de la salida de la crisis. No podemos olvidar que el último trimestre de 2008 y el primero de 2009 representó una caída de 3% del PBI brasileño".
Cuando la prensa preguntó a Barbosa si el gobierno tomaría medidas fiscales a lo largo del año para ayudar a contener el avance económico, el funcionario respondió que esas decisiones se toman de acuerdo a cómo va el desempeño económico. A decir verdad, hablar de freno o desaceleración cuando existe una creciente inestabilidad en las economías europeas -al punto de hablarse del fin de la zona del euro- es cuanto menos aventurado. Brasil ya tuvo la experiencia de fines de 2008 y principios de 2009 cuando su economía se paralizó por el miedo provocado por la crisis financiera mundial. En aquel momento, no había medidas en cierne desplegadas para combatir las consecuencias dentro del país. Ahora se manejan más instrumentos y nadie puede jurar que no será preciso utilizar los sistemas de financiamiento de la demanda interna y la desgravación impositiva de sectores de consumo durable para impedir que las tormentas mundiales vuelvan a abatir la economía doméstica como ocurrió hace un año y medio.
La información del Banco Central sobre el aumento del PBI trimestral se basó en el análisis de tres sectores: el agro, la industria y los servicios. La institución evaluó también que la inflación este año será ligeramente superior a lo previsto, probablemente de 5 por ciento. El ministro Mantega llamó a ser "muy prudentes". A diferencia de los privados, ubicó el crecimiento anual entre 5,5 y 6 por ciento. Así lo indicó en Madrid en un foro de inversores extranjeros. También allí admitió que le tocará a los países del llamado BRIC -China, Brasil, India y Rusia- liderar la recuperación económica mundial en 2010. "Los 4 países darán cuenta de más del 60% del crecimiento global para este año", concluyó.
Brasil proyecta crecer 5,5% en 2010
Viernes 21 de mayo de 2010
n El gobierno de Brasil elevó de 5,2 a 5,5% la proyección de crecimiento de su economía para 2010, informó ayer el Ministerio de Planificación.
Este es uno de los escenarios tomados en consideración para definir el texto final del informe elevado al Parlamento, y modifica la proyección realizada en marzo, al relevarse la situación del primer bimestre.
"'Los países emergentes aportarán dos terceras partes del crecimiento mundial en el 2010", afirmó el Ministro de Hacienda brasileño.
En forma simultánea, el gobierno subió de 5 a 5,5% la expectativa para el índice oficial de su inflación este año, según consignó un despacho de la agencia Brasil. Debido al cambio en los parámetros de la economía, el gobierno anunció la semana pasada que reducirá en más de 10 mil millones de reales (0,3% del PIB) los gastos de los ministerios, como forma de mantener el crecimiento de manera sustentada.
De acuerdo con los técnicos del gobierno, la reducción de la demanda gubernamental permitirá un control inflacionario.
SE DIFICULTA EL REGRESO A LOS MERCADOS Y HAY TEMOR SOBRE EL IMPACTO EN EL FISCO
La crisis europea cierra la ventana financiera y puede complicar la caja K
El canje y la trunca colocación del nuevo bono son los factores inmediatos de contagio. Las devaluaciones del euro y el real mellan competitividad y precio de las exportaciones
ESTEBAN RAFELE Buenos Aires ()
La incertidumbre que envuelve al euro y obstaculizó el primer tramo del canje de deuda en default también puede poner en aprietos las cuentas del Gobierno, sobre todo si la tormenta financiera avanza sobre el precio de la soja y la fortaleza del dólar respecto de la moneda europea y el real continúa, lo que deprime la competitividad del peso.
El primer tramo del canje de deuda arrojó un resultado menor al esperado. Los u$s 8.500 millones que ingresaron hasta el viernes, o el 45% del total, no satisficieron ni al mercado ni a las autoridades, que aguardaban una aceptación de u$s 10.000 millones. El ministro de Economía, Amado Boudou, se mostró conforme con la cifra que ingresó a la operación, pero admitió que "este es un momento de alta volatilidad" que complica este tipo de acciones.
Este escenario también impidió al Gobierno emitir el bono por dinero fresco. Ayer, el riesgo país trepó a su máximo en ocho meses, hasta los 850 puntos y la tasa de retorno del Boden 15, bono de referencia para saber qué interés le exigirían los inversores a Argentina para prestarle dinero, subió hasta 15,3%.
Los economistas, que al principio de la crisis griega veían difícil un contagio al país, dicen ahora que el canal financiero será la primera vía de transmisión. "Por ahora, el único contagio que se ve es lo que ocurre con el canje y los bonos" afirmó Marina Dal Poggetto, del estudio Bein. Y comenzaron a temer un impacto en las exportaciones argentinas, sobre todo si la caída del euro –que ayer se tomó un respiro– continúa.
Es que el Gobierno se había asegurado un ingreso de al menos u$s 7.000 millones proveniente de las retenciones a las exportaciones de soja, cuyo precio cayó 2% desde el inicio de la crisis griega. Pero la apreciación del dólar y la consiguiente pérdida de valor de las commodities puede repercutir en el fisco, en momentos en que la administración de Cristina Fernández está comprometida en expandir con fuerza el gasto para cebar el consumo y la obra pública con el tipo de cambio como ancla contra la inflación. "Previo a la crisis europea, las perspectivas de apreciación cambiaria real estaban en torno al 9%. Actualmente se ubican en 13%", indicó la consultora Prefinex.
La devaluación del real, que supera el 8% desde el inicio de la debacle griega, complica este panorama y torna menos competitivas a las exportaciones industriales hacia Brasil. Y, vale recordarlo, Europa representa el 17% de las exportaciones, según Abeceb.com, pero el país vecino es el principal socio comercial.
Así las cosas, el fenomenal repunte de la actividad –la industria creció más del 9% en abril, para FIEL– podría opacarse a partir del segundo semestre si esta tendencia continúa. "Si hay devaluaciones o salidas del euro, nadie sabe qué puede pasar y va a haber un 'vuelo a la calidad' muy importante", dijo el economista de Prefinex Nicolás Bridger. Las consultoras y el Gobierno todavía confían en el auge del consumo y de la cosecha de soja récord y vaticinan una expansión del PIB de entre 5% y 6,5% para el año. Pero si la tragedia griega continúa, pueden empezar a afinar esos números.
