S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow in Brazil reached US$ 65.3 billion in 2012, according to figures released this Thursday (23rd) by the Central Bank. It was the second highest figure ever in the Central Bank\u2019s historical series, second only to 2011\u2019s US$ 66.6 billion.<\/p>\n
The FDI flows seen last year sufficed to finance the country\u2019s current transaction deficit, which amounted to US$ 54 billion, an all-time high figure equivalent to 2.4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).<\/p>\n
To the president of the Brazilian Society of Studies on Transnational Corporations and Economic Globalization (Sobeet), Lu\u00eds Afonso Lima, the main attractor of foreign investment in 2012 was the domestic market, rather than exports and commodities manufacturing, which are other traditional investment-attracting factors in Brazil. <\/p>\n
Such attractiveness, he said, stems from increased and better distributed income, and higher credit availability in the market. To that end, the executive noted that the top FDI-attracting sector was services, which outpaced industry, agriculture and mining. According to the Central Bank, the types of services that drew the most investment in were trade, financial activities, insurance, private pension plans, and healthcare plans. <\/p>\n
The main issuer of FDI to Brazil in 2012 was the United States, which accounted for over 20% of the total. Lima believes investment tend to become more concentrated around the main sources.<\/p>\n
However, he claims the number of investing companies is going up. In the past, multinational corporations were the main issuers, whereas now, smaller companies are setting up operations in Brazil. \u201cThese are new businesses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Projection <\/b><\/p>\n
Lima believes the performance seen in 2012 \u201cwill not necessarily last throughout 2013.\u201d The reason is that \u201cthe large investment has already taken place\u201d and the tendency of a higher number of lower-value deals should persist. Global FDI flows are on the way down, and competition among FDI target countries is increasing. \u201cThe cake is getting smaller, but competition is on the rise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Despite the prospect of the Brazilian economy growing by a higher rate in 2013 than it did in 2012, Lima estimates that FDI inflow will be smaller this year, because, though more resistant, \u201cBrazil is not immune\u201d to the bad shape of the world economy, and should suffer the consequences. To FDI investors, one year with a high rate of GDP growth does not suffice. A stable, long-term outlook is worth more. <\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The amount of net investment into the productive sector in 2012 was second only to 2011. Services was the sector that saw the highest inflow, which was encouraged by the domestic market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1454,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy"},"wps_subtitle":"The amount of net investment into the productive sector in 2012 was second only to 2011. Services was the sector that saw the highest inflow, which was encouraged by the domestic market.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}