Bird prevê crescimento de 7% na economia do país em 2008

InvestNews
11/06/2008
O Banco Mundial (Bird) divulgou ontem uma previsão de crescimento de 7% na economia indiana para o ano de 2008. Em 2007, a Índia cresceu 8,7%, ante 9,7% registrados no ano anterior.
Entre os fatores que mais influíram no estudo elaborado pela da entidade financeira, está a desaceleração da demanda por produtos industrializados.
No início desta semana, autoridades indianas divulgaram que a inflação do país avançou para 8,24%, na semana encerrada no dia 24 de maio, ante 8,1% registrados na semana anterior, maior índice registrado em três anos e meio.
O Banco Central do país tem tomado medidas para absorver o excesso de liquidez do sistema financeiro para conter pressões inflacionárias, como a redução de impostos de importação incidentes sobre alguns alimentos.

Brazil: Economic Growth Slows

By BLOOMBERG NEWS
Published: June 11, 2008
Brazil’s economy grew 5.8 percent in the first quarter, powered by higher consumer spending that is stoking inflation and forcing the central bank to raise interest rates. The growth rate slowed from 6.2 percent in the last three months of 2007. Brazil’s statistics agency also reported that exports had fallen 2.14 percent from a year ago, their first quarterly decline since June 2006.

Emergentes receberam US$ 1 trilhão de fundos privados

BBC Brasil / Steve Schifferes
11/06/2008
Mais de US$ 1 trilhão de fundos privados foram investidos em países em desenvolvimento em 2007, o que representou um aumento de US$ 174 bilhões em relação ao investido cinco anos atrás, de acordo com um relatório divulgado pelo Banco Mundial (BM).
Segundo a organização, houve um forte aumento do investimento estrangeiro no mercado de ações e de empréstimos bancários nesses países.
Países relativamente mais prósperos, como Brasil e China, recebem a maior parte do investimento desses fundos privados, enquanto que alguns países muito pobres da África recebem pouco desse dinheiro.
No momento, os fundos estão fluindo para países em desenvolvimento - especialmente grandes mercados emergentes como China e Índia - porque eles ainda estão em crescimento, mesmo com a redução do ritmo econômico dos Estados Unidos e da Europa.
No entanto, o Banco Mundial alerta que, com o começo de uma crise de crédito no mundo todo, reflexo dos problemas no mercado de hipotecas nos Estados Unidos, o fluxo de dinheiro para os emergentes está começando a diminuir.

Ex-ministra: PAC investirá R$ 15 bilhões em trem-bala Rio-SP

Terra / Hermano Freitas
11/06/2008
A ex-ministra do Turismo e pré-candidata do PT à prefeitura de São Paulo, Marta Suplicy, disse, na noite desta terça-feira, que o Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC) investirá R$ 15 bilhões na construção de um trem-bala que ligará o Rio de Janeiro a Campinas, passando por São Paulo.
Segundo a ministra-chefe da Casa Civil, Dilma Rousseff, quando pronta, a ferrovia levará passageiros em um intervalo entre 1h30 e 1h50 do Rio a São Paulo e vice-versa.
Dilma afirmou ainda que a obra visa a Copa do Mundo, que o País sediará em 2014. "A mobilidade entre as duas maiores cidades do País será estratégica", disse.
Marta Suplicy e Dilma Rousseff falaram, para um platéia de militantes e jornalistas no Sindicato dos Engenheiros, na região central de São Paulo, durante um evento que discute problemas e soluções para o trânsito da maior cidade do País.

GLOBAL ECONOMY-Inflation surges as commodities prices soar

Wed Jun 11, 2008 7:04am EDT
SINGAPORE, June 11 (Reuters) - Surging raw materials prices pushed Japan's wholesale price inflation to a 27-year high in May and China's factory-gate inflation to its highest in nearly four years, underscoring growing price pressures on the world's economies.
Spain reported annual consumer inflation jumped to a 13-year high of 4.6 percent in May and France said EU-harmonised inflation rose to 3.7 percent, its highest since the data series began in 1997.
"We're still seeing the predominant effect of energy prices and food prices, it's the same story. Inflation will continue to be high in coming months, we haven't reached the peak yet," Olivier Gasnier, an economist at Societe Generale said of the French data.
Rising commodity prices have swung the main focus of global policy makers in recent weeks away from economic growth to the threat of a global spike in inflation.
Although demand is showing signs of weakening in the United States and Europe, voracious appetite for raw materials to feed fast growing emerging economies is fuelling a sharp rise in inflation and increasingly worrying central banks.
Recent comments from the heads of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have prompted financial markets to price in an increasing risk of higher interest rates in the world's top two trading blocs.
Reflecting China's need for raw materials to keep its economy humming along at double-digit growth, May imports rose at their fastest pace since 2004.
Its exports were also unexpectedly strong thanks to demand from the likes of Brazil and Russia, where shipments rose more than 84 percent and more than 47 percent, respectively, offsetting relatively sluggish demand growth from the United States of 9.1 percent.
Higher raw material costs pushed up China's producer price inflation to 8.2 percent in May, the highest in nearly four years. Food, energy and raw materials costs all surged at double-digit pace.
PIPELINE PRESSURE
The figures suggested price pressures in the pipeline for ordinary Chinese that could limit any moderation in consumer inflation in coming months.
China's trade surplus in May hit $20.2 billion, down 10 percent from a year earlier, after imports soared 40 percent to outpace exports growth of 28.1 percent.
The evidence that the surplus is cresting will offer some relief to Chinese policy makers who will hold high-level talks with their counterparts in the United States next week.
But the surplus is not shrinking quickly enough to relieve the central bank's headache of cash flooding into the country from exports, one of the root causes of inflation.
"If export growth holds up and the trade surplus remains at these elevated levels, forex reserve accumulation continues," said Dwyfor Evans, an economist at State Street in Hong Kong.
China's foreign exchange reserves, already the world's largest, grew a record $74.5 billion in April, adding to the vast pool of liquidity that threatens to push prices still higher.
The central bank signalled its concern on Saturday with an aggressive 1 percentage point increase in banks' reserve requirements to sop up some of the surplus cash in the economy.
That rise, which ties up deposits that banks could otherwise lend out, was interpreted as a harsh tightening step by investors and triggered a steep fall in China's stock markets.
The country's benchmark index .SSEC briefly dipped below the psychologically important level of 3,000 on Wednesday but pared losses to close 1.6 percent lower at 3,024. It's down more than 40 percent so far this year.

Governo pode elevar meta de exportação, diz secretário

Segundo Welber Barral, alta de 5,8% no PIB mostra que indústria está se fortalecendo.
Projeção hoje está estimada em US$ 180 bilhões.
Agência Estado
11/06/2008
A meta de exportações brasileiras para 2008 deverá ser elevada pelo Ministério do Desenvolvimento, Indústria e Comércio Exterior (MDIC) a partir de julho. O crescimento de 22% na média diária das vendas externas no início deste ano levará a uma revisão da projeção, hoje estimada em US$ 180 bilhões. A informação é do secretário de Comércio Exterior do ministério, Welber Barral.
Para ele, o Brasil tem se beneficiado da alta dos preços das matérias-primas (commodities), ampliado a competitividade de seu parque industrial e também conquistado novos mercados. Barral disse que a evolução do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) de 5,8% no primeiro trimestre deste ano em relação a igual período de 2007 demonstra que a indústria está se fortalecendo e que o Brasil caminha bem diante da desaceleração da economia norte-americana.
O secretário participou da reunião conjunta dos comitês de Comércio Exterior e Negociações Internacionais da Câmara Americana de Comércio (Amcham) de São Paulo.

Reservas internacionais estão próximas de máxima histórica

Rodrigo Postigo
11/06/2008
As reservas internacionais do Brasil estão próximas de chegar à marca histórica de US$ 200 bilhões, apesar de terem recuado de US$ 199,649 bilhões, na última sexta-feira, para US$ 198,673 bilhões, ontem. Os dados são divulgados diariamente pelo Banco Central.
No primeiro dia útil do ano, 2 de janeiro, as reservas internacionais estavam em US$ 181,378 bilhões.
As reservas são apontadas pelo Banco Central como um mecanismo para o País resistir a choques externo.

UPDATE 3-Brazil GDP growth eases in Q1 as investment slows

Tue Jun 10, 2008 4:37pm EDT
(Adds president, finance minister comments)
By Elzio Barreto
SAO PAULO, June 10 (Reuters) - Brazil's economy slowed in the first quarter as companies reduced investments after spending at a torrid pace on new machinery and factories, the government said on Tuesday.
Gross domestic product growth slowed to 0.7 percent in the first quarter from the 1.6 percent expansion seen in the fourth quarter, data from Brazil's statistics agency IBGE showed.
Year-over-year growth slowed to 5.8 percent in the first quarter of 2007 from the 6.2 percent annual pace in the preceding quarter. Finance Minister Guido Mantega called the slowdown "desirable" because the economy's strong expansion last year had threatened to stoke inflation.
"We are not suppressing demand, it's only a slight deceleration, it's throwing a bit of cold water on the fire," Mantega told reporters.
The economy is expected to lose steam in the coming months as recent interest rate rises prompt consumers to pare spending and companies to cut investments, analysts said.
Brazil's central bank raised its benchmark lending rate last week for the second time in less than two months to curb resurgent inflation and prevent the economy from overheating.
"The economy is set to slow under monetary tightening," said Marcelo Carvalho, chief Brazil economist for Morgan Stanley in Sao Paulo. "This year started strong, but it will probably end on a soft note."
Carvalho expects Brazil's GDP growth will slow to between 3 and 4 percent annually in the second half of 2008 from a 5 to 6 percent pace now.
A Reuters poll forecast first-quarter GDP would grow 0.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 and 5.6 percent from the first quarter of 2007.
Brazil's economy, the largest in Latin America, is forecast to expand 4.8 percent in 2008, after surging 5.4 percent in 2007, according to central bank estimates.
"I am convinced that we will stay with this (growth) for many, many years," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said. "It's just a matter of us not losing common sense and not allowing inflation to come back."
Brazil's benchmark inflation index jumped 5.25 percent in the 12 months to mid-May, much higher than the 4.5 percent target the central bank has for 2008 and 2009.
INTEREST RATE FUTURES
Interest rate futures rose after the release of the GDP data.
The contract <0#dij:> for January 2010 delivery, the most widely traded on the BM&F commodities and futures exchange, rose to 14.81 percent from Monday's close of 14.76 percent.
The contract indicates investors' expectations for the benchmark Selic rate at the end of December 2009.
Brazil's industry grew 1.6 percent quarter on quarter, accelerating from a 1.1 percent rate of expansion in the fourth quarter. It grew 6.9 percent from the first quarter of 2007.
Services growth slowed to 1 percent from 1.5 percent in the previous quarter and jumped 5 percent year on year.
Capital investments in areas such as machinery, factories and infrastructure grew 1.3 percent quarter on quarter after expanding 3.3 percent in the fourth quarter.
Investments jumped 15.2 percent from the first quarter of 2007 as companies ramped up capacity to keep up with surging domestic demand, although at a slower pace than the 16 percent rate seen in the fourth quarter.
"Historically, this is one of the most volatile components," Carvalho said. "Whenever the economy is booming, investment grows the fastest; when the economy goes into a slump, investment is the one that takes the most heat."
For the complete GDP report please go to: here (Additional reporting by Isabel Versiani in Brasilia, Carmen Munari in Sao Paulo and Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio de Janeiro; Editing by James Dalgleish)