10/28/2008 09h40
Despite the crisis, foreign investment is the 2nd biggest in history
O Estado de S. Paulo 10/23/2008
The worsening of the financial crisis has not prevented foreign investments in the Country from continuing growing. Direct foreign investments (DFI) amounted to US$ 6.258 billion in September, the second biggest volume of the historical series of the Central Bank, which started in 1947. The value is greatly superior to what was registered in the same month last year, when the entrance of this type of investment amounted to US$ 1.537 billion. Last month Brazil received US$ 6.258 billion in direct investments for productive enterprises. The best result registered to date occurred in January of 2007, when US$ 10.318 billion entered the country, in the middle of the IPO wave in the São Paulo stock market. The above-expectations result, according to the head of the Economic Department of the Central Bank, Altamir Lopes, was generated by the entrance of US$ 2.7 billion sent by a multinational of the retail sector. He remarks that DFI suffers less with the international financial crisis because these are longer-term investments. "There was no interruption of this flow because this money gets to the Country with a long term perspective", he says. However, he affirms that it is necessary to be on alert to the behavior of the numbers to evaluate the real effect of the crisis in the entrance of funds. For October, the CB expects the entrance of US$ 3.5 billion in DFI. In the accumulated from January to September, DFI amounts to US$ 30.834 billion, against US$ 27.982 billion of last year's same period. In the accumulated of 12 months, ended in September, the entrance of DFI totals US$ 37.437 billion, the equivalent to 2.44% of the GDP. In the twelve months until September of 2007, the entrance of DFI amounted US$ 34.828 billion, or 2.79% of the GDP. The remittances of profits and dividends of Brazilian companies abroad doubled in September, in comparison with last year's same month. They amounted to US$ 3.436 billion according to data of the CB, compared to US$ 1.686 billion in 2007. In the accumulated of the year, this account registered a net outflow of US$ 27.5 billion compared to US$ 14.983 billion from January to September last year. The expenses with interest in September amounted to US$ 502 million compared to US$ 428 million in the same month of 2007. From January to September, the interest account shows the outflow of USS 5,491 billion compared to US$ 6,271 in the same period last year.
