Category: Brazil

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.

Brazil’s industrial output grew 1.7 percent in March, the slowest pace in 17 months, as rising interest rates have cooled demand and a stronger currency has hurt exports in some industries. Brazil’s central bank has lifted the benchmark lending rate eight times since September to rein in inflation. The International Monetary Fund said in April that it expects Brazil’s economy to expand 3.7 percent this year.

Jose Luis Cutrale, whose family controls Sucocitrico Cutrale, Brazil’s largest orange-juice producer, said wholesale prices will surge this year and may reach a six-year high as lower production in Florida cuts into global supplies. Cutrale predicted that the price of orange juice will rise in the next few months to as much as $1.10 a pound from 94.6 cents now.