Inflow of foreign investment doubles in January
Folha de S. Paulo - 02/26/2008
The flow of direct foreign investments to Brazil reached US$ 4.814 billion last month, the double of the value registered in January of 2007 and 443% more than last December's. According to the Brazilian Central Bank, the financial institutions and steel companies were the main destinations of these investments. This month, however, the situation is a little different: according to the data released yesterday, the flow of investments is only at US$ 100 million, and it may achieve US$ 200 million until the end of the week, according to the projections of the BC (Central Bank). The CB's head of the Economic Department, Altamir Lopes, says that the difference between the numbers of January and February results, mainly, from some isolated transactions made in the last weeks by three multinationals which sold their interest in Brazilian companies, and caused an outflow off Brazil of nearly US$ 1 billion, which, in the CB statistics, reduces the balance of foreign investments. Lopes did not want to mention the names of the companies involved in the deals, but he affirmed that, even though they have great impact on the February statistics, these were isolated events and should not affect the expected trend for the rest of the year. In the CB's projection Brazil should receive US$ 28 billion from direct foreign investments throughout 2008. If the inflow of US$ 200 million is confirmed in February, the balance accumulated in the first two months will be around US$ 5 billion.