MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

FDI in Brazil soars in October; reaches 30 billion USD in ten months, the year’s target

Foreign direct investment in Brazil soared to 6.8 billion US dollars in October, the highest for the month since records were started. This was higher than last month with 5 billion and four times October a year ago with 1.6 billion, according to the latest release from the central bank.

In the first ten months of the year, FDI in Brazil reached 29.4 billion US dollars equivalent to 1.8% of GDP, while in the last twelve months to October, FDI was 36.1 billion dollars equivalent to 1.83% of GDP. In the twelve months to October 2009 the equivalent was 1.97% of GDP.

So far in November (23) FDI adds to 2.2 billion and are expected to reach 2.8 billion at the end of the month. The figures were presented by Tulio Maciel, head of the Central bank Economics department.

He added that foreign investment in Brazilian shares totalled in November 928 million USD. However since operations in Brazil’s markets attracted 935 million USD, it means that Brazilian companies’ shares overseas have seen a retraction of 7 million US dollars.

“The last two months have been most positive, and we have already overtaken our initial annual FDI investment target”, said Maciel. The target for 2010 is 30 billion USD, but in the first ten months of the year they already total 29.4 billion.

Meanwhile foreign investment in shares added to 14.53 billion US dollars in October, which is slightly higher than in October 2009 with 14.49 billion. According to the Brazilian central bank most foreign investors appealed to ADR with a liquid positive exposure of 9.6 billion. Shares traded exclusively in Brazil had a positive showing of 4.9 billion US dollars during October.

So far in 2010, shares attracted 33.7 billion US dollars, of which 26.6 billion in Brazil and 7.1 billion in ADRs. The central bank also reported that foreign investment in fixed income assets reached 2.4 billion in October, of which 1.75 traded in Brazil and 491 million USD overseas. In the ten months of the year this type of investments attracted 26.3 billion USD.

Remittances of earnings and dividends in October totalled 2.2 billion USD according to the central bank. This compares with the 1.6 billion of last September and 1.9 billion of a year ago. In the first ten months of this year remittances reached 23 billions, compared to 17.9 billion a year ago.