June 3rd, 2010 - 2 responses
Brazil counted 4,8 million tourists in 2009, 4,9% less than in record-year 2008 when 7,2 million tourists visited the country.
In 2010 the number of tourists is expected to be around 7,8 million tourists and by 2014 BMI forecasts that number to grow to 9,2 million.
Last April,, foreign tourists spent US$ 461 million in the country, the largest value ever recorded in the month since 1947. The total for the first four months of the year is US$ 2.116 billion.
In December, the Brazilian government announced its Plano Aquarela 2020 that aims to double the number of foreign visitors in the next ten years. The 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, that will be hosted by the country, should be instrumental to reach this target. You can find the full presentation here.
Interesting is to see the table of the countries form which tourists growth was fastest in the period 2003-2005 (page 23 and 24).
Belgium ranks lowest, with number of tourists to Brazil growing from 29.237 to 30.037. Holland only has 1,6x the number of habitants of Belgium, but they have 2,8x the number of people visiting Brazil and also growing at double the growth rate of Belgium (31% to 16%). Belgium is clearly “onder de kerktoren”.
Also interesting:
60% of all international tourists visit Rio de Janeiro (up from 52%), Florianopolis ranks with 7% (up from 4%), in the same league as Natal (8%), Fortaleza (8%) and Recife (7%), which grow on a much slower pace (1%). Visits to Salvador plumetted from 21% to 14 % and also visits to Foz do Iguacu go down from 12 to 11%.
And 60% of the incoming international tourists come for the second or more time to Brazil (read: repeat business is high).
31,5% of all tourists visit Rio (going slightly down from 33,9%) and 12,1% visit Florianopolis (going up from 11,9%). More tourists visit Florianopolis than Salvador (11,5%), Fortaleza (6,4%) or Natal (5,8%).
Tags: tourism brazil
June 2nd, 2010 - no responses
Brazil’s economy is by many misconsidered to be completely depending on exports of agriculture products and ores.
First of all, the importance of export to the GDP of Brazil is fairly low (<17%) compared to its peers (China,…). And secondly, its economy is extremely diversified.
Mercedes announced today that Brazil is its number one producer of trucks worldwide today, surpassing the production in Germany itself. The factory in Juiz de Fora (Minas Gerais) will be expanded substantially to fill in demand.
But this excellent letter from Alberto Desirelli to Marc Faber points to a much more painful shortsightedness of the developed world:
Thomson Reuters, which indexes scientific papers from 10.500 journals worldwide, analyzed the performce of four emerging markets compared to developed markets over the past 30 years.The Thomson Reuters figures show not only the “awe-inspiring” expansion of Chinese science but also a very powerful performance by Brazil, much slower growth in India and relative decline in Russia.
In contrast to China, India and Russia, whose research strengths tend to be in the physical sciences, chemistry and engineering, Brazil stands out in health, life sciences, agriculture and environmental research. It is a world leader in using biofuels in auto and aero engines.
Read the full articles in the Financial Times and The Telegraph.
Meanwhile, month after month, Belgian is breaking records with bankrupcy figures.
Also the entrepeneurial sector is kickstarting a vibrant period in Brazil, Ago Cluytens devoted an excellent piece on it on his Blog. The piece also featured on startupi in Portuguese.
Tags: research
May 16th, 2010 - no responses
Tomorrow the Belgian Economical Mission under leadership of prince Filip starts. You can follow the mission here on De Tijd.
An impressive delegation of 227 business people and 22 journalists are joining; you can download the complete list here.
Belgium is a country which is absolutely under-represented in Brazil compared to European average figures and especially compared to the French doing business with and in Brazil. And this in times where our export-driven Flemish economy is in such desperate needs.
Mieke Pynnaert, Flemisch Economic Representative São Paulo at Flanders Investment & Trade is doing a great job with her team in changing this. But again here, the Begian politicians fail.
Belgian minister of ICT, Telco, Economy and Reform Vincent Van Quickenborne would by the Belgian federal minister joining the mission, together with Minister of foreign affairs Steven Vanackere. Both consider their own personal political interests to be more important than the interests of the economy of Belgian and decided 2 days before the mission starting to cancel their presence and focus on their personal campaign for the elections of June 13; read the press on it here.
Concusion: @VincentVQ: fail.
Tags: Vincent Van Quickenborne, VincentVQ
May 13th, 2010 - 2 responses
On Bloomberg today:
“Pacific Investment Management Co. said the debt crisis in Europe shows its outlook for an extended period of below-average economic growth remains valid, even after global markets rebounded from the financial crisis”
…
“What is happening in Europe is a vivid illustration of an underlying theme of the new normal,” Mohamed El-Erian, the chief executive officer of Pimco, said in an interview. There are “structural forces overwhelming traditional cyclical ones,” he saidPimco, which coined the phrase “new normal” a year ago to describe a world characterized by high unemployment rates, more regulation, and a shrinking importance of the U.S. in the global economy, reiterated the view at its annual investment meeting last week in Newport Beach, California, the firm said today on its website. t is even clearer today than it was a year ago that the global economy has embarked upon a multiyear journey that is subject to many tensions,” El-Erian wrote in a commentary on the website
…
“Growth and wealth will shift to emerging economies such as Brazil, China and India, driven by rising employment and income, according to Pimco. Europe will struggle as it tries to ward off deflation, and questions are “multiplying” about the euro and the makeup of the euro zone, El-Erian said.
Tags: the new normal
May 7th, 2010 - one response
With all the turbulences in the European markets, one would almost forget this positive news:
The European Commission decided this week to relaunch talks on creating a Freetrade zone between Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) and Europe.
Previous negotiations were stopped in 2004. Also services would enter the negotiations.
German Handelsblatt covers the start of the negotiations:
“Der Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft Mercosur gehören Brasilien, Argentinien, Uruguay und Paraguay an. Ihr gemeinsames Bruttoinlandsprodukt beträgt rund 1 300 Mrd Euro. Der Wert europäischer Investitionen in die Mercosur-Staaten lag zuletzt bei rund 155 Mrd. Euro. Laut Kommission sind sie damit höher als die europäischen Investitionen in China, Indien und Russland zusammen. In Jahren vor der Krise sind die europäischen ausfuhren Richtung Mercosur jährlich um rund 15 Prozent gestiegen.”
European investments in Mercosur total 155 Mrd Euro, which is more than European investments in China, India and Russia together.
Read also the excellent article in Brasil Economico on the topic today.
Tags: freetrade mercosur europe
