This content was published on July 27, 2021 – 17:58
Rio de Janeiro, Jul 27 (EFE) .- Brazil received 174 million dollars of direct foreign investment in June, a value 30 times lower than that of the same month of 2020 (5,165 million dollars) and the lowest for the month in recent 5 years, but the accumulated investment in the first semester grew compared to last year.
According to the data released this Tuesday by the Central Bank, the investment of foreigners in productive projects in Brazil totaled 25,691 million dollars in the first semester, with a growth of 8.3% compared to that of the first 6 months of last year (23,724 million dollars).
Despite this slight recovery compared to last year, when the covid-19 pandemic scared off investors from Brazil and paralyzed several projects of multinationals, foreign direct investment in the first half of 2021 is still far from that registered in the 6 first months of 2019 (32,233 million dollars).
Despite the sharp drop in investment in June, the Central Bank’s forecast is that the value injected by foreigners into the country will reach 4.7 billion dollars in July and accumulate about 60 billion dollars until the end of the year.
If this expectation is met, investment will rise again after having fallen in 2020, affected by the pandemic, to $ 44,661 million, with a reduction of 50.6% compared to 2019 and which represented the lowest value in 11 years.
The issuer expected foreign investment in June to reach 2,500 million dollars, but that balance was affected by an unusual withdrawal of 2,400 million dollars in intercompany operations, that is, by the sending of dividends from subsidiaries to their parents in the abroad, which may mean that transnationals are not reinvesting their resources in Brazil.
According to the head of the Central Bank’s Statistics Department, Fernando Rocha, the fall in investment in June was one-off. For the official, the sending of resources from multinationals abroad is normal and depends on different factors.
“This is a decision that depends on the balance sheets of the parent companies, on the need for them to be able to close positively or to take advantage of the favorable exchange rate. Therefore, everything indicates that this fall was the result of a specific phenomenon,” he said.
The Brazilian issuer also reported that Brazil registered a deficit of 6,975 million dollars in its foreign transactions in the first half of 2021, just under half the deficit of 13,261 million dollars registered in the first 6 months of 2020.
In June, Brazil obtained a surplus of 2,791 million dollars in its current account balance, below the positive balance of 3,056 million dollars in the same month last year.
June was the third consecutive monthly surplus and reflected the recovery of the Brazilian economy after the historic fall in its GDP of 4.1% in 2020.
According to the issuer, the deficit of Brazil in its transactions with the exterior accumulated in 12 months, until June 2021, was located in 19,600 million dollars, the equivalent of 1.27% of the GDP, the lowest percentage in this relation since January 2018.
Brazil’s current account deficit reached $ 53.8 billion in the 12 months between July 2019 and June 2020, the equivalent of 3.25% of GDP. EFE
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