Category: Brazil

Brazil’s annual inflation rate rose to 8.07 percent in April, its first time above 8 percent in 16 months as medicine costs jumped and a drought in the south of the country drove up grain prices. The monthly inflation rate surged to 0.87 percent in April from 0.61 percent in March. Brazil’s central bank has lifted the benchmark lending rate eight times since September to 19.5 percent.

Brazil sold $500 million of bonds Tuesday priced to yield 8.83 percent, 4.58 percentage points more than US Treasuries of similar maturity. The bonds mature in 2019. Emerging-market bonds have rebounded from their slide in late March as concern has eased that higher rates in the US will crimp demand for debt from emerging markets. Including Tuesday’s sale, Brazil has raised $4.9 billion of the $6 billion it plans to sell in international bond markets this year.

Brazilian no frills airline Gol posted first quarter profits of $45 million, an increase of 64 percent over the same period last year. Net revenues for passenger transport were $231 million, up 36 percent, while cargo revenues increased 32 percent to $10 million.

Brazilian holding company Itausa reported net profits of $531 million for the first quarter, up 37 percent year-on-year. The holding’s result takes into account the performance of its controlled companies Duratex, Itautec, Elekeiroz, and Banco Itau.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva opened an Arab-Latin American summit in Brasilia Tuesday which aims to boost trade between the two regions and to reduce developing nations’ economic dependence on the US and European Union. The summit marks Lula’s latest push to lead a bloc of developing countries that can press industrial nations to cut farm subsidies and lower barriers to agricultural imports.

Net income at Banco Bradesco, Brazil’s biggest private-sector bank, doubled in the first quarter to $490 million on higher revenue from lending. This marks the bank’s tenth straight quarter of rising profit. Bradesco boosted loans outstanding to $28.8 billion, a 22% increase from the first quarter last year and 6% jump since the end of December.

Cássio Casseb, former president of Banco do Brasil, will take the helm of Coinbra, a Brazilian trading company and affiliate of Louis Dreyfus. Coinbra trades oranges, soya and cotton and posted $1.6 billion in revenues in 2004. Casseb worked at Citibank and Bank Boston before taking over at Banco do Brasil.

Henrique Meirelles, president of the Central Bank of Brazil, says he is awaiting “with serenity and tranquility” a Supreme Court decision on whether to investigate allegations of financial irregularities against him. Meirelles said, “I have always lived according to the law and personal ethics. I see any type of investigation in a positive light.”

Henrique Neves has taken over as president at troubled Brazilian airline Varig. Neves is a former president of regional telephone company Brasil Telecom and a former director at Shell Brasil. David Zylbersztajn, a former head of the National Oil Agency, a regulatory body, takes over as chairman.

Brazil’s soy complex exports rose 12 percent in April to $925 million due to higher international soy prices and increased production in Brazil. The country’s overall agribusiness exports stood at $3.5 billion, a record-high result for the month of April and up 21 percent from a year earlier.