By Narayan Ammachchi

Analyst firm Fast Market Research has predicted that Brazil’s domestic IT spending will increase by 10 percent to reach US$ 11.80 billion by the end of 2013.

The key drivers of this growth are the international sporting events, FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games, which the Latin American country is hosting in 2014 and 2016 respectively.

The sporting events will ‘drive billions of dollars of IT spending’, noted the research firm.

“Despite a slowdown in PC sales in 2012 and forecasts of a deceleration of economic growth in 2013, we believe a number of factors will converge to stimulate faster growth in the IT market in 2013,” said the analyst firm in a press release.

In the hardware market, the launch of Windows 8 and the arrival of higher performance price competitive tablets are expected to boost sales.

Interestingly, the analyst …

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By Narayan Ammachchi

Alejandro Werner, IMF’s new Director of the Western Hemisphere, says he expects the economic growth in Latin America to remain strong in 2013, but he has asked the governments in the region to focus on ‘growth-enhancing and employment-generating’ policies to reduce poverty and income inequality.

Werner, who left BBVA Bancomer to join the IMF in January this year, says large capital inflows were generating some volatility in some domestic financial markets.

“The IMF has to work closely with policymakers in these countries to help them design policies that will put them on a path of higher growth and declining debt-to-GDP levels,” Werner stated in an interview given to IMF’s in-house publication IMF Survey Online.

The IMF’s executive said he would work with Brazil and Mexican governments to help them strengthen their fiscal and regulatory frameworks. “I think we have to assist …

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By Filipe Pacheco

As Brazil’s information technology (IT) sector expands, one city in the northeastern state of Ceará is starting to steal some of the limelight. The place is Fortaleza, the beautiful city in the northeastern corner of Brazil, home to over two million people and a place that has some surprising things going for it, include a disproportionate number of young professionals.

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By Narayan Ammachchi

The middle class in the majority of Latin American countries continues to improve, lifted millions of people out of poverty, says the United Nation’s 2013 Human Development Report.

The report titled ‘The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World’ analyses the progress made by the developing countries and lauds innovative social programs – such as Mexico’s Oportunidades program and Brazil’s Bolsa Familia – in the region.

Access to good healthcare services, education and employment skills will enable more number of people to find jobs and join the middle class in the days ahead, the report added.

“The rise of the South is one of the most remarkable phenomenon in the new global arena,” said Heraldo Muñoz, UNDP Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The report lauds Brazil, Chile and Mexico for what it calls ‘exemplary innovation’ in …

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BY STAFF REPORT

U.S. carrier Delta has sought permission from the U.S. Department of Transportation to operate more flights to the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, departing from Atlanta and New York.

If approved, Delta said it would add second daily Sao Paulo flights to both Atlanta and New York this year.

“Delta has a strong commitment to the Latin American market and we want to increase options of travel to and from Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest and most important market for business travelers,” said Nicolas Ferri, Delta’s vice president, Latin America and the Caribbean. “Our expanded service means more options for customers flying between these key business markets, and new flights to our hub in Atlanta mean greater access to our industry-leading domestic network.”

Delta now has 35 nonstop weekly flights between Brazil and the United States, including Atlanta, Detroit and New York-JFK to Sao Paulo, as …

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BY STAFF REPORT

The unemployment rate in Brazil fell to a record 4.6 percent in December last year from 4.9 percent the month before.

Figures released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) show the Brazilian economy is beginning to accelerate again, after somewhat of a slowdown the last two years.

The IBGE said 4.6 percent was the lowest unemployment rate it ever recorded.

Unemployment in Brazil reached to a record 12.4 percent in 2003, but dropped to 6 percent in 2011. Analysts say the job market has been performing extremely well since 2011.

Brazil Minister of Labor Brizola Neto has attributed the jobs growth to President Dilma Rousseff’s economic policy.

For the past two years, Brazil has been stimulating its manufacturing sector offering a wide range of incentives and tax benefits to companies who set up manufacturing units inside the country.

“This …

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BY STAFF REPORT

A total of five Latin American countries, including Peru and Colombia, have found a place in the list of top 20 emerging markets unveiled by the Bloomberg Markets Magazine last week.

The magazine said it graded the countries on more than a dozen criteria and also took into account the assessment made by the IMF and the World Bank in reaching its conclusion.

The three leading factors that the Bloomberg considered are: ease of doing business, perceived level of corruption, and economic freedom.

Asian nations, like China and South Korea, dominated the top of the list and are closely followed by the countries in Latin America.

Among the Latin American countries, Peru and Chile were ranked fourth and eighth, while Brazil and Mexico held 17 and 16 slot respectively.

Brazil

GDP growth, 2013 to 2017: 22.3%

Inflation rate: 4.7%

Government debt as % of GDP: 57.3

Ease of doing …

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BY STAFF REPORT

Weakening demand for raw materials from China seems to have taken its toll on Brazil’s current account deficit. Figures released by the central bank Wednesday showed the country’s current account deficit widened to a record $8.413 billion in December from $6.27 billion in November.

Analysts blame the deficit on Brazil’s increasing import and slipping export.

“An increasingly unequal balance of payments also raises the question of whether Brazil can continue to cover the shortfall with foreign direct investment, whose growth has stagnated since a jump in late 2010,” says a report from Reuters.

When FDI inflow was strong and steady in large part of 2012, the Brazilian central bank had managed to keep the deficit under control. But foreign direct investment started declining in the second half of last year.

The last time foreign direct investment failed to cover Brazil’s annual current account …

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By Filipe Pacheco

Until a year ago, Brazil was known as one of the worst places in the world to get a business loan – given the seemingly punitive terms many lenders offered.  For decades, the country has kept interest rates high in an attempt to fight rising inflation and protect the value of its currency – the real. But now the business financing market is changing for the better, with the country’s state-run bank BNDES (Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social), deciding to accelerate lending

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BY STAFF REPORT

Brazil’s competitiveness in the global marketplace is diminishing due to the rising cost of labor, capital and  shaky infrastructure, according to a study published in December by the National Confederation of Industry.

The Confederation, which put Brazil in 13th place among 14 countries it surveyed to measure socio-economic conditions, has also expressed concern on the country’s weak macro-economic environment and poor transport network.

In the study, Brazil has performed only better than Argentina, which ranked at the bottom. At the top of the list is Canada, followed by South Korea, Australia, China, Spain, India, Chile, South Africa, Poland, Russia, Colombia and Mexico.

Those who conducted the study said they found no improvement in Brazil’s economic competitiveness since a similar survey carried out in 2010.

Surprisingly, Brazil’s industrial sector growth slowed to 0.3% in 2011, after expanding a sizzling 10.5% in 2010. The Latin America’s biggest economy posted a …

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