Group of 20 leaders say they want to rebalance the world economy but getting them to accept a weaker U.S. dollar in the process could prove a lot to ask.
That’s especially true now that the Group of 20, which includes emerging markets like China and India, has supplanted the Group of Seven rich countries as the forum for managing the global economy.
In fact, coordinating currency policy of any kind may get a lot harder if it requires getting 20 countries, with disparate interests and priorities, to pull in the same direction.
“It’s tough to reach consensus on currencies in the best of times, but with more people at the table and more interests to pursue, it could make coordinated intervention more difficult to achieve,” said David Gilmore, partner at FX Analytics in Essex, Connecticut. (more…)
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Brazil reacted discreetly to the information that American president, Barack Obama, will travel after all to Copenhagen in Denmark to support Chicago’s candidacy to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Rio de Janeiro is confident that it will get the honor to present those competitions, becoming the first country in South America to do this in the history of the Olympics.
Carlos Arthur Nuzman, president of the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) and the Rio Olympic Committee (Co-Rio), already in Copenhagen, stated that Brazil is not changing any of the plans it has for its last presentation, this coming Friday.
“The chiefs of states’ participation in the campaign to host the Olympic and Paraolympic Games of 2016 is a matter of each candidacy. Rio 2016’s strategy for the final presentation has already been defined, with president Lula’s leadership, who is directly involved with the Brazilian candidacy since the beginning, two years ago.
Rio de Janeiro governor, Sérgio Cabral, signed a decree making October 2, the day the Olympics host city is chosen, a holiday for public workers in the whole state. (more…)
Dilma Rousseff, chief of staff to Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Dilma Rousseff, chief of staff of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the woman handpicked by him to be Brazil’s next president, has been declared by her doctors to be free of lymphatic cancer.
“After exhaustive examinations it was determined that her treatment achieved the expected result and that minister Dilma Rousseff is free of any sign of lymphoma,” according to a note from doctors at the Sírio Libanês Hospital in São Paulo where she was treated.
The one-time guerrilla and veteran leader of the governing Workers Party is in “an excellent general state of health” and may return to her normal routine, say the medical communique.
Rousseff underwent a biopsy in April that allowed doctors to diagnose her with lymphoma. Although at the time doctors acknowledged that with the early diagnosis and the removal of the affected nodule, any possibility of metastasis could be dismissed, they recommended chemotherapy and radiation. (more…)
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the second most popular leader of the Americas
According to respected Mexican pollster Mitofsky Consultants, MC, despite 7 years in office, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the second most popular leader of the Americas, losing only to the president of El Salvador, who took office recently. In the other extreme of the list is Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, with the worst ranking.
Mauricio Funes from El Salvador who has been in charge since March, is top of the list with 84% support, followed by Brazil’s Lula with 81%; Chile’s Michelle Bachelet comes in third with 78% approval followed by freshman Panamanian leader Ricardo Martinelli with 77% and Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe with 70%.
The continental public opinion poll was done during the months of May and September this year, in each of the countries.
The Mitofsky report underlines that the leadership cases of Brazil and Colombia, Lula and Uribe, are “exceptional examples of high public opinion support given the fact that the presidents have been in office for almost eight consecutive years. (more…)
Augusto de la Torre, the World Bank's chief economist for Latin America
The worst of the financial crisis is over for Latin America, a region poised to recover, thanks to the extraordinary dynamism of the Brazilian economy, said Augusto de la Torre, the World Bank’s chief economist for Latin America.
During the first plenary session at the Americas Conference in Coral Gables, De la Torre warned, however, that significant frailties remain — specifically in the labor market and the region’s private demand.
In earlier remarks, Pamela Cox, vice president for Latin America of the World Bank, said the region should grow 3 percent in 2010 after contracting between 2 and 2.5 percent in 2009.
De la Torre said Latin America is well positioned for recovery and could contribute to the world’s rebound more than China, adding that the region should get out of the world crisis relatively unscathed and even emerge as an attractive destination for investment.
“Latin America can actually help the world more than people think,” he said, since its economy as a whole is almost as big as China but consumption is much larger.
De la Torre cautioned, however, that the region needs to step up its productivity-oriented agenda to take the best advantage of the recovery.
“The region has improved its social and macroeconomic policies in recent years, but it still lags behind Asia in terms of innovation and productivity,” he said.
By ALEJANDRA LABANCA
