Brazilian Government has decided that any future bidding rounds involving pre-salt blocks will only be launched according to the local industry capability to supply the demand in equipment and services needed by the sector. Local industry has been struggling to keep up with the demand placed by O&G players already involved in pre-salt E&P in Brazil, which are all Petrobras partners, such as BG and others.
FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke says there is a huge amount still to do in preparations for the World Cup. In his end-of-year statement on FIFA.com, the Frenchman urges Brazil 2014 organizers to work flat out in the months before the June 12 kick-off in Sao Paulo to deliver on their promises.
The Brazilian state of Sao Paulo will receive a loan for 480 million dollars from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to improve freight and passenger transport in the state highway system in order to enhance competitiveness and regional and international integration by reducing transport costs and travel time.
UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution aimed at protecting the right to privacy of internet users. The resolution was introduced by Brazil and Germany after allegations that the US had been eavesdropping on foreign leaders, including Brazil's Dilma Rousseff and Germany's Angela Merkel.
Brasilia and Washington have taken the latest technical steps to open the US market to Brazilian beef, which if all runs smoothly together with a 60 to 90 days public consultation period could see the first shipments in the second quarter of next year. Currently because of sanitary barriers linked to Foot and Mouth Disease, FMD, Brazil can only export industrialized beef to the US.
Unemployment in Brazil's six-largest cities was 4.6% in November compared with 5.2% in October, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, or IBGE, said on Thursday. That was the lowest monthly reading since December 2012, when unemployment was also at 4.6%.
Brazil on Thursday strenuously denied European Union charges it engages in protectionism and said it would show its trade programs conform to WTO rules. The EU took Brazil to the World Trade Organization Thursday, complaining it was using taxes to discriminate against imports and illegally help its exporters
Sweden's Saab AB prevailed over U.S. giant Boeing and French manufacturer Dassault Aviation in a competition to supply the Brazilian air force with 36 aircraft to replace its aging Mirage 2000s, Brazil said Wednesday.
The new US ambassador in Brazil Liliana Ayalde said President Barack Obama is prepared to receive his Brazilian peer Dilma Rousseff. The statement comes weeks after a state visit planned for last October was suspended by Dilma in protest over revelations of extensive US spying of Brazilian communications including the mobiles of the Brazilian leader.
France will lose out in its bid to win a multi-billion-dollar fighter jet contract with Brazil, the Folha de Sao Paulo daily reported over the week-end. It said France’s 4 billion dollars proposal for 36 Rafale fighter jets, from a consortium led by French giant Dassault, will be shot down for cost reason.