Foreign Investment in the country breaks record
Folha de S. Paulo - 12/20/2007
Direct foreign investments in Brazil until November have already surpassed the total reached in years of record capital inflow. Between January and November, according to the Central Bank, the inflow of resources was US$ 33.730 billion, twice that of the same period of 2006. The year of greatest inflow had been 2000, with US$ 32.779 billion, influenced by the money the government received with the privatizations. The sale of Banespa to the Spanish Santander alone brought nearly US$ 3 billion that year. This time, the major factor in the recovery of the investments is the global wave of mergers and acquisitions, with consequences in Brazil. According to the Central Bank, nearly 20% of the legal capital inflow this year corresponds to transactions that exceed US$ 1 billion. Last year, these large transactions corresponded to only 5% of the total inflow. Thanks to these figures, the total of foreign investments in the country already exceeds the balance of the Brazilian foreign debt in almost US$ 100 billion, which, for the Central Bank, helps reduce the external vulnerability.