Uma super Pascoa russa (com direito a tudo o que eles ja' fizeram...)

Pois é, eu já tinha feito aqui um post sobre aquela velha história do ladrão que rouba ladrão, não é mesmo?
Não sei se terá cem anos de perdão, mas podem contar com ódio eterno do governo, dos novos ricos, dos mafiosos, dos capitalistas russos, enfim, de tutti quanti tinham enriquecido honestamente na Rússia, nos últimos 20 anos, e que tinham se dedicado a fazer um pouco de caridade com uma pequena ilha semi-pobre do Mediterrâneo.
Essa falta de garantia sobre a riqueza adquirida ainda vai matar o capitalismo...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Confisco pode chegar a 60% para os clientes do Banco de Chipre

Situação só não é pior do que no banco Laiki, onde os correntistas com mais de € 100 mil perderão 100%

Andrei Netto, correspondente

PARIS - Uma semana após a aprovação de um plano de resgate de € 17 bilhões, o governo do Chipre e os correntistas dos maiores bancos do país começam a descobrir a amplitude do confisco exigido pela União Europeia, o Banco Central Europeu (BCE) e o Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI). Cálculos preliminares e extraoficiais indicam que o corte no saldo de contas correntes, poupanças e investimentos com mais de € 100 mil poderá chegar a 60% para os clientes do Banco de Chipre, o maior da ilha. A situação só não é pior do que no banco Laiki, onde os correntistas com recursos acima deste valor perderão 100%.
O confisco de recursos de investidores privados foi a fórmula encontrada por Bruxelas e pelo FMI para fazer com que o governo cipriota arrecade € 7 bilhões em recursos, montante da contrapartida do país aos € 10 bilhões em recursos internacionais que lhes serão emprestados. Pelo acordo de socorro, o Banco Laiki (Popular) será extinto. Clientes com menos de € 100 mil serão transferidos ao Banco de Chipre, enquanto os demais perderão seus recursos.
O memorando de entendimento também previa o confisco de parte dos recursos dos clientes do Banco de Chipre. Há uma semana, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, coordenador do fórum de ministros de Finanças da zona do euro (Eurogrupo), havia estimado os cortes entre 25% e 40%. No sábado à noite, o Banco Central cipriota informou que o corte será de 37,5%, valor que será transformado em ações da instituição - o que transformará, compulsoriamente, os correntistas em sócios do banco. Além disso, outros 22,5% serão congelados e poderão ser confiscados caso o governo precise de recursos extras.
"A primeira estimativa feita é de que 37,5% dos depósitos acima de € 100 mil serão convertidos em ações", confirmou o ministro das Finanças, Michalis Sarris. "Por segurança, uma vez que os cálculos foram feitos sobre o montante que precisamos, 22,5% ficarão em separado." Segundo nota do BC cipriota, a decisão será informada "90 dias após o fim da avaliação".
Alternativas
Conforme o porta-voz do governo cipriota, Christos Stylianides, as autoridades também buscarão outras alternativas para geração de recursos, "investigando todos os aspectos da crise no setor bancário". Para Stylianides, as opções podem incluir "a supressão ou a redução de empréstimos e outros serviços fornecidos por bancos cipriotas no país e no exterior".
Chipre viveu um feriado bancário de 12 dias em razão da turbulência financeira no país. As agências bancárias foram reabertas na quinta-feira, mas um controle de fluxo de capitais, estabelecendo limites estritos para os correntistas, entre os quais saques de € 300 por semana e transferências internacionais de até € 5 mil por mês.
Segundo relatório do Instituto da Finança Internacional (IIF), o órgão que representa grandes investidores mundiais, o plano de socorro da UE para o Chipre causará uma depressão da ordem de 20% do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) do país em apenas dois anos. Para efeitos de comparação, a Grécia, nação mais atingida pela recessão na Europa, levou cinco anos para chegar à depressão de 20%.

VEJA TAMBÉM

• Bancos do Chipre reabrem com grandes filas e restrição a transações
• Chipre impõe controle para evitar corrida a bancos

Uma zona para ninguem botar defeito: uma super zona...

Calma, calma, os mais afoitos, que ainda não está pronta.
Quando estiver, será realmente do cacete, como se diz vulgarmente...
Mas, não se preocupem as almas cândidas e os espíritos puros, essa zona será cristã e de muito bons modos.
Se trata da super zona de livre comércio entre os EUA e a UE, abrangente como nenhuma outra, sem pecados veniais; serão todos originais: certamente não desmantelarão o protecionismo agrícola pornográfico, nem o subvencionismo escandaloso, que faz corar os livre-cambistas mais ortodoxos.
Em todo caso, esse carnaval todo era apenas para anunciar a publicação de meu mais recente artigo:

1090. “EUA e UE negociam uma super zona de livre comércio”, O Debatedouro (Belo Horizonte: ano 12, n. 1, ed. 82, março 2013, p. 33-37; ISNN: 1678-6637; link: http://odebatedouro.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/debat82.pdf).

Miseria do keynesianismo americano - David Stockman (NYT)

Ao final, entrevista, link para o livro do autor e mais informações.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

State-Wrecked: The corruption of capitalism in America
David A. Stockman
The New York Times, Opinion, Sunday, March 31, 2013

Over the last 13 years, the stock market has twice crashed and touched off a recession: American households lost $5 trillion in the 2000 dot-com bust and more than $7 trillion in the 2007 housing crash. Sooner or later — within a few years, I predict — this latest Wall Street bubble, inflated by an egregious flood of phony money from the Federal Reserve rather than real economic gains, will explode, too.

Since the S.&P. 500 first reached its current level, in March 2000, the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve have expanded their balance sheet sixfold (to $3.2 trillion from $500 billion). Yet during that stretch, economic output has grown by an average of 1.7 percent a year (the slowest since the Civil War); real business investment has crawled forward at only 0.8 percent per year; and the payroll job count has crept up at a negligible 0.1 percent annually. Real median family income growth has dropped 8 percent, and the number of full-time middle class jobs, 6 percent. The real net worth of the “bottom” 90 percent has dropped by one-fourth. The number of food stamp and disability aid recipients has more than doubled, to 59 million, about one in five Americans.

So the Main Street economy is failing while Washington is piling a soaring debt burden on our descendants, unable to rein in either the warfare state or the welfare state or raise the taxes needed to pay the nation’s bills. By default, the Fed has resorted to a radical, uncharted spree of money printing. But the flood of liquidity, instead of spurring banks to lend and corporations to spend, has stayed trapped in the canyons of Wall Street, where it is inflating yet another unsustainable bubble.

When it bursts, there will be no new round of bailouts like the ones the banks got in 2008. Instead, America will descend into an era of zero-sum austerity and virulent political conflict, extinguishing even today’s feeble remnants of economic growth.

THIS dyspeptic prospect results from the fact that we are now state-wrecked. With only brief interruptions, we’ve had eight decades of increasingly frenetic fiscal and monetary policy activism intended to counter the cyclical bumps and grinds of the free market and its purported tendency to underproduce jobs and economic output. The toll has been heavy.

As the federal government and its central-bank sidekick, the Fed, have groped for one goal after another — smoothing out the business cycle, minimizing inflation and unemployment at the same time, rolling out a giant social insurance blanket, promoting homeownership, subsidizing medical care, propping up old industries (agriculture, automobiles) and fostering new ones (“clean” energy, biotechnology) and, above all, bailing out Wall Street — they have now succumbed to overload, overreach and outside capture by powerful interests. The modern Keynesian state is broke, paralyzed and mired in empty ritual incantations about stimulating “demand,” even as it fosters a mutant crony capitalism that periodically lavishes the top 1 percent with speculative windfalls.

The culprits are bipartisan, though you’d never guess that from the blather that passes for political discourse these days. The state-wreck originated in 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt opted for fiat money (currency not fundamentally backed by gold), economic nationalism and capitalist cartels in agriculture and industry.

Under the exigencies of World War II (which did far more to end the Depression than the New Deal did), the state got hugely bloated, but remarkably, the bloat was put into brief remission during a midcentury golden era of sound money and fiscal rectitude with Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House and William McChesney Martin Jr. at the Fed.

Then came Lyndon B. Johnson’s “guns and butter” excesses, which were intensified over one perfidious weekend at Camp David, Md., in 1971, when Richard M. Nixon essentially defaulted on the nation’s debt obligations by finally ending the convertibility of gold to the dollar. That one act — arguably a sin graver than Watergate — meant the end of national financial discipline and the start of a four-decade spree during which we have lived high on the hog, running a cumulative $8 trillion current-account deficit. In effect, America underwent an internal leveraged buyout, raising our ratio of total debt (public and private) to economic output to about 3.6 from its historic level of about 1.6. Hence the $30 trillion in excess debt (more than half the total debt, $56 trillion) that hangs over the American economy today.

This explosion of borrowing was the stepchild of the floating-money contraption deposited in the Nixon White House by Milton Friedman, the supposed hero of free-market economics who in fact sowed the seed for a never-ending expansion of the money supply. The Fed, which celebrates its centenary this year, fueled a roaring inflation in goods and commodities during the 1970s that was brought under control only by the iron resolve of Paul A. Volcker, its chairman from 1979 to 1987.

Under his successor, the lapsed hero Alan Greenspan, the Fed dropped Friedman’s penurious rules for monetary expansion, keeping interest rates too low for too long and flooding Wall Street with freshly minted cash. What became known as the “Greenspan put” — the implicit assumption that the Fed would step in if asset prices dropped, as they did after the 1987 stock-market crash — was reinforced by the Fed’s unforgivable 1998 bailout of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management.

That Mr. Greenspan’s loose monetary policies didn’t set off inflation was only because domestic prices for goods and labor were crushed by the huge flow of imports from the factories of Asia. By offshoring America’s tradable-goods sector, the Fed kept the Consumer Price Index contained, but also permitted the excess liquidity to foster a roaring inflation in financial assets. Mr. Greenspan’s pandering incited the greatest equity boom in history, with the stock market rising fivefold between the 1987 crash and the 2000 dot-com bust.

Soon Americans stopped saving and consumed everything they earned and all they could borrow. The Asians, burned by their own 1997 financial crisis, were happy to oblige us. They — China and Japan above all — accumulated huge dollar reserves, transforming their central banks into a string of monetary roach motels where sovereign debt goes in but never comes out. We’ve been living on borrowed time — and spending Asians’ borrowed dimes.

This dynamic reinforced the Reaganite shibboleth that “deficits don’t matter” and the fact that nearly $5 trillion of the nation’s $12 trillion in “publicly held” debt is actually sequestered in the vaults of central banks. The destruction of fiscal rectitude under Ronald Reagan — one reason I resigned as his budget chief in 1985 — was the greatest of his many dramatic acts. It created a template for the Republicans’ utter abandonment of the balanced-budget policies of Calvin Coolidge and allowed George W. Bush to dive into the deep end, bankrupting the nation through two misbegotten and unfinanced wars, a giant expansion of Medicare and a tax-cutting spree for the wealthy that turned K Street lobbyists into the de facto office of national tax policy. In effect, the G.O.P. embraced Keynesianism — for the wealthy.

The explosion of the housing market, abetted by phony credit ratings, securitization shenanigans and willful malpractice by mortgage lenders, originators and brokers, has been well documented. Less known is the balance-sheet explosion among the top 10 Wall Street banks during the eight years ending in 2008. Though their tiny sliver of equity capital hardly grew, their dependence on unstable “hot money” soared as the regulatory harness the Glass-Steagall Act had wisely imposed during the Depression was totally dismantled.

Within weeks of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008, Washington, with Wall Street’s gun to its head, propped up the remnants of this financial mess in a panic-stricken melee of bailouts and money-printing that is the single most shameful chapter in American financial history.

There was never a remote threat of a Great Depression 2.0 or of a financial nuclear winter, contrary to the dire warnings of Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman since 2006. The Great Fear — manifested by the stock market plunge when the House voted down the TARP bailout before caving and passing it — was purely another Wall Street concoction. Had President Bush and his Goldman Sachs adviser (a k a Treasury Secretary) Henry M. Paulson Jr. stood firm, the crisis would have burned out on its own and meted out to speculators the losses they so richly deserved. The Main Street banking system was never in serious jeopardy, ATMs were not going dark and the money market industry was not imploding.

Instead, the White House, Congress and the Fed, under Mr. Bush and then President Obama, made a series of desperate, reckless maneuvers that were not only unnecessary but ruinous. The auto bailouts, for example, simply shifted jobs around — particularly to the aging, electorally vital Rust Belt — rather than saving them. The “green energy” component of Mr. Obama’s stimulus was mainly a nearly $1 billion giveaway to crony capitalists, like the venture capitalist John Doerr and the self-proclaimed outer-space visionary Elon Musk, to make new toys for the affluent.

Less than 5 percent of the $800 billion Obama stimulus went to the truly needy for food stamps, earned-income tax credits and other forms of poverty relief. The preponderant share ended up in money dumps to state and local governments, pork-barrel infrastructure projects, business tax loopholes and indiscriminate middle-class tax cuts. The Democratic Keynesians, as intellectually bankrupt as their Republican counterparts (though less hypocritical), had no solution beyond handing out borrowed money to consumers, hoping they would buy a lawn mower, a flat-screen TV or, at least, dinner at Red Lobster.

But even Mr. Obama’s hopelessly glib policies could not match the audacity of the Fed, which dropped interest rates to zero and then digitally printed new money at the astounding rate of $600 million per hour. Fast-money speculators have been “purchasing” giant piles of Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities, almost entirely by using short-term overnight money borrowed at essentially zero cost, thanks to the Fed. Uncle Ben has lined their pockets.

If and when the Fed — which now promises to get unemployment below 6.5 percent as long as inflation doesn’t exceed 2.5 percent — even hints at shrinking its balance sheet, it will elicit a tidal wave of sell orders, because even a modest drop in bond prices would destroy the arbitrageurs’ profits. Notwithstanding Mr. Bernanke’s assurances about eventually, gradually making a smooth exit, the Fed is domiciled in a monetary prison of its own making.

While the Fed fiddles, Congress burns. Self-titled fiscal hawks like Paul D. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, are terrified of telling the truth: that the 10-year deficit is actually $15 trillion to $20 trillion, far larger than the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of $7 trillion. Its latest forecast, which imagines 16.4 million new jobs in the next decade, compared with only 2.5 million in the last 10 years, is only one of the more extreme examples of Washington’s delusions.

Even a supposedly “bold” measure — linking the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security payments to a different kind of inflation index — would save just $200 billion over a decade, amounting to hardly 1 percent of the problem. Mr. Ryan’s latest budget shamelessly gives Social Security and Medicare a 10-year pass, notwithstanding that a fair portion of their nearly $19 trillion cost over that decade would go to the affluent elderly. At the same time, his proposal for draconian 30 percent cuts over a decade on the $7 trillion safety net — Medicaid, food stamps and the earned-income tax credit — is another front in the G.O.P.’s war against the 99 percent.

Without any changes, over the next decade or so, the gross federal debt, now nearly $17 trillion, will hurtle toward $30 trillion and soar to 150 percent of gross domestic product from around 105 percent today. Since our constitutional stasis rules out any prospect of a “grand bargain,” the nation’s fiscal collapse will play out incrementally, like a Greek/Cypriot tragedy, in carefully choreographed crises over debt ceilings, continuing resolutions and temporary budgetary patches.

The future is bleak. The greatest construction boom in recorded history — China’s money dump on infrastructure over the last 15 years — is slowing. Brazil, India, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and all the other growing middle-income nations cannot make up for the shortfall in demand. The American machinery of monetary and fiscal stimulus has reached its limits. Japan is sinking into old-age bankruptcy and Europe into welfare-state senescence. The new rulers enthroned in Beijing last year know that after two decades of wild lending, speculation and building, even they will face a day of reckoning, too.

THE state-wreck ahead is a far cry from the “Great Moderation” proclaimed in 2004 by Mr. Bernanke, who predicted that prosperity would be everlasting because the Fed had tamed the business cycle and, as late as March 2007, testified that the impact of the subprime meltdown “seems likely to be contained.” Instead of moderation, what’s at hand is a Great Deformation, arising from a rogue central bank that has abetted the Wall Street casino, crucified savers on a cross of zero interest rates and fueled a global commodity bubble that erodes Main Street living standards through rising food and energy prices — a form of inflation that the Fed fecklessly disregards in calculating inflation.

These policies have brought America to an end-stage metastasis. The way out would be so radical it can’t happen. It would necessitate a sweeping divorce of the state and the market economy. It would require a renunciation of crony capitalism and its first cousin: Keynesian economics in all its forms. The state would need to get out of the business of imperial hubris, economic uplift and social insurance and shift its focus to managing and financing an effective, affordable, means-tested safety net.

All this would require drastic deflation of the realm of politics and the abolition of incumbency itself, because the machinery of the state and the machinery of re-election have become conterminous. Prying them apart would entail sweeping constitutional surgery: amendments to give the president and members of Congress a single six-year term, with no re-election; providing 100 percent public financing for candidates; strictly limiting the duration of campaigns (say, to eight weeks); and prohibiting, for life, lobbying by anyone who has been on a legislative or executive payroll. It would also require overturning Citizens United and mandating that Congress pass a balanced budget, or face an automatic sequester of spending.

It would also require purging the corrosive financialization that has turned the economy into a giant casino since the 1970s. This would mean putting the great Wall Street banks out in the cold to compete as at-risk free enterprises, without access to cheap Fed loans or deposit insurance. Banks would be able to take deposits and make commercial loans, but be banned from trading, underwriting and money management in all its forms.

It would require, finally, benching the Fed’s central planners, and restoring the central bank’s original mission: to provide liquidity in times of crisis but never to buy government debt or try to micromanage the economy. Getting the Fed out of the financial markets is the only way to put free markets and genuine wealth creation back into capitalism.

That, of course, will never happen because there are trillions of dollars of assets, from Shanghai skyscrapers to Fortune 1000 stocks to the latest housing market “recovery,” artificially propped up by the Fed’s interest-rate repression. The United States is broke — fiscally, morally, intellectually — and the Fed has incited a global currency war (Japan just signed up, the Brazilians and Chinese are angry, and the German-dominated euro zone is crumbling) that will soon overwhelm it. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse. If this sounds like advice to get out of the markets and hide out in cash, it is.

David A. Stockman is a former Republican congressman from Michigan, President Ronald Reagan’s budget director from 1981 to 1985 and the author, most recently, of “The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America.”
===========
“The Great Deformation” by David Stockman
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Deformation-Capitalism-Corrupted-Democracy/dp/1586489127

Entrevista em 2/04/2013:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6hmrk8kvE4

Debate sobre o livro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNDXC88po_I

Grato ao Fernando Ulrich pelo envio destas informações.

França, de 1983 a 2013: austeridade, ainda que tardia

Mars 1983 – mars 2013, une « trop longue crise »
Françoise Fressoz
Le Monde, 29 Mars 2013

Il y a trente ans, presque jour pour jour, François Mitterrand prenait le tournant de la rigueur après avoir défendu pendant deux ans une politique de relance censée changer la vie.

Jeudi, sur France 2, François Hollande n'a pas pris le tournant de la rigueur pour la simple raison que la rigueur s'est imposée à lui dès le début de son quinquennat. Il n'a pas hésité à l'engager, contrairement à son lointain prédécesseur, parce que le niveau de la dette ne permettait plus à la France de tergiverser.

Mais il a pu mesurer, comme François Mitterrand, le coût politique et social de cette politique de remise en ordre des comptes publics. Comment incarner le progrès et insuffler l'espoir quand les usines ferment, que le chômage explose, que le pouvoir d'achat baisse, que la croissance est en berne et que le déficit de la balance commerciale sanctionne un inquiétant retard de compétitivité ?

Entre mars 1983 et mars 2013, les termes du débat n'ont pas fondamentalement changé : c'est le rapport à l'Allemagne qui est posé, avec en filigrane le décrochage français, qui nourrit une sorte de désespérance et crée dans tout le pays les germes de la division.

Une partie de la gauche crie à la trahison, la droite se radicalise, le Front national réussit une percée locale. Et cette répétition, à trois décennies de distance, est une désespérance supplémentaire.

François Hollande, qui connaît bien son histoire, sent le drame se nouer. Il reconnaît que "la crise a été trop longue". Il injecte autant qu'il le peut des antidotes, se veut rassembleur pour deux et réconfortant pour trois. Il "croit en la grandeur française" et nie que "l'Allemagne soit plus forte que nous".

Il "se bat" pour la croissance et rejette farouchement le mot d'austérité, exactement comme François Mitterrand en mars 1983, mais avec un handicap supplémentaire.

A l'époque, le président socialiste avait reporté tous ses espoirs sur l'Europe qu'il s'était mis à bâtir à coups d'Acte unique et de monnaie unique. François Hollande n'a plus la chance de cette utopie.

L'Europe est l'objet d'un ressentiment croissant. Elle semble paralysée, inerte face à la montée du populisme et incapable d'assurer la prospérité. La relation franco-allemande s'est délitée au point que le président se veut le chef de file des pays du Sud qui se rebellent contre la potion allemande.

François Mitterrand rêvait de faire l'Europe de la croissance en complicité avec l'Allemagne. François Hollande se fixe pour objectif de combattre l'Europe de l'austérité en confrontation avec Angela Merkel. C'est toute la différence.

par Françoise Fressoz


Catégories: Non classé

Agronegocio: o eixo dinâmico da economia brasileira

O artigo é bom, self-praise, mas deixa de identificar e de mensurar, claramente, os fatores positivos e negativos de produtividade e de competitividade do agronegócio nacional.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

O eixo dinâmico da economia nacional
O Estado de S.Paulo, 30 de março de 2013
Luiz Carlos Corrêa Carvalho *

Alguns dias atrás, neste jornal, o ex-governador de São Paulo José Serra mostrou a sua preocupação com o processo de desindustrialização do País e questionou: "Nada contra a brilhante expansão da produção e da exportação de bens agrominerais. Mas alguém acredita, e demonstra, que, além do papel estratégico na geração de divisas, esse setor poderia tornar-se o eixo dinâmico de um país continental, de 200 milhões de habitantes?". É preciso avaliar isso com cuidado. Em época antecipada de disputa eleitoral, seus comentários foram, provavelmente, uma crítica à falta de políticas públicas nos níveis macroeconômico e industrial. Tais observações, no entanto, fixam em nossa mente a imagem do Brasil como mero exportador de commodities, como algo negativo.

Essa visão clássica, em texto de Evaristo Eduardo de Miranda, pesquisador da Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa), em seu livro recém-lançado Agricultura no Brasil do Século XXI, é desconstruída, pois é atrasada, preconceituosa e revela desconhecimento sobre a importância do agronegócio para a economia nacional. "Para compreender a agricultura brasileira, não basta apresentar números recordes de produção, sempre crescentes. Propalar ideias como 'maior exportador do mundo', disso e aquilo, acaba por esconder a evolução das condições da produção, os impactos e a sustentabilidade. Mais do que quanto, é essencial entender como se produz no Brasil". Para a imensa população brasileira, que luta e vive os riscos no campo, fica a ideia de um setor menos importante.

Há, porém, um discurso comum: o Brasil é competitivo no agronegócio! É importante, no entanto, salientar a enorme evolução havida na tecnologia agroindustrial, graças à inovação, e o empreendedorismo de pequenos, médios e grandes agricultores e indústrias correlatas, nacionais e internacionais. A liderança do agronegócio tropical é brasileira e continuará sendo se depender da lógica das limitações físicas dos países e da competência das organizações de pesquisa atuantes no Brasil. A tecnologia e o nível de manejo contidos em um grão ou em um grama de produto acabado superam, e muito, produtos outros que fazem brilhar os olhos do consumidor desavisado.

A discussão global no século 21 gira em torno das inseguranças alimentar e energética. Ambas definem a paz ou a guerra. Até 2050, mais 2 bilhões de pessoas irão ao consumo, cobrando alimentos e energias produzidas de forma sustentável. A Organização das Nações Unidas para a Alimentação e a Agricultura (FAO), juntamente com a Organização para a Cooperação e Desenvolvimento Econômico (OCDE), organização dos países desenvolvidos, convocou o Brasil a responder por 40% da oferta adicional de alimentos. Além do potencial do Brasil em produzir, salta aos olhos do mundo o fato que o País expande constantemente a sua oferta, mesmo retraindo, anualmente, nos últimos dois anos, 2 milhões de hectares. Isso é competitividade!

Há 20 anos, Ney Bittencourt de Araújo criou, com companheiros progressistas, a Associação Brasileira do Agronegócio (Abag), entidade do agronegócio que segue o conceito das cadeias produtivas, lançado em Harvard. Os elos da cadeia vão de bens de capital e insumos, passando pela produção agrícola e industrial, indo à distribuição, ao atacado e ao varejo, incluindo as exportações. Isso explica o peso e a importância da agroindústria, do agronegócio, hoje um quarto do produto interno bruto (PIB) brasileiro e responsável por cerca de 1,5 milhão de empregos formais no País.

Ignacy Sachs, cientista internacional e que conhece profundamente o Brasil, comentou na revista Estudos Avançados, da Universidade de São Paulo (USP), que "o País possui a maior biodiversidade do mundo, uma reserva confortável de solos agrícolas (mesmo que não se toque em uma só árvore da floresta amazônica), climas amenos, vantagens naturais do trópico na produção de biomassa, etc. Ao juntar todas essas coisas pode-se partir para a construção de uma nova civilização do trópico, baseada no trinômio biodiversidade, biomassas e biotecnologias".

O sucesso do agronegócio norte-americano ou europeu nos séculos passados já é o do Brasil neste e assim será nos séculos vindouros. E este é o grande diferencial que este século reserva ao Brasil: ser a flor da geopolítica de alimentos e de energia, pelo potencial de oferta; pelos extraordinários e positivos impactos na cadeia produtiva, estímulo às indústrias e agriculturas; pelos resultados da balança comercial; pela descentralização das ofertas e dos investimentos no interior do País; pelo processo contínuo de inovações tecnológicas, que gera competitividade de forma crescente e sustentável.

Nossos governantes separam os negócios em caixas. Privilegiam algumas caixas e há dezenas de anos não investem em logística e infraestrutura. Nosso PIB também vive o pesadelo do limite da tampa da sua caixa, fazendo sofrer a população brasileira, seus investidores e trabalhadores. Tudo isso são barreiras ao agronegócio.

As oportunidades para o Brasil no campo da agroindústria de alimentos são motivo de convocação das entidades globais. No da energia renovável somos liderança apreciada. Afinal, na lei norte-americana de energia, o etanol brasileiro da cana-de-açúcar é considerado avançado e apto para importação. Trata-se de um dos mais importantes convites que o Brasil já recebeu.

A nova fase do mundo, no século 21, mostrará as conquistas da ciência, em particular da biologia e da biotecnologia. Dessa forma, é cada vez mais difícil, mesmo para aqueles com a visão das cercanias das cidades, esconder o sucesso e o futuro do agronegócio brasileiro como um eixo dinâmico, competitivo e gerador de empregos e renda para um país de dimensões continentais.

* Luiz Carlos Corrêa Carvalho é presidente da Associação Brasileira do Agronegócio.

Brics: una sombra pronto seras?

Sem tango, claro...

Retratos dos Brics

28 de março de 2013 | 2h 08

Editorial O Estado de S.Paulo

 

Se quiserem ter mais influência no cenário mundial, os Brics (Brasil, Rússia, Índia, China e África do Sul) precisam, para começo de conversa, organizar com mais eficiência as reuniões de seus dirigentes. O "chá de cadeira" que o presidente da África do Sul, Jacob Zuma, aplicou à presidente Dilma Rousseff é mais um efeito da desorganização desses países, que almejam ser um grupo de defesa de seus interesses comuns, mas até agora não conseguiram ser mais do que uma mera sigla.
Sem ter nada de concreto a apresentar passados cinco anos de sua primeira reunião de cúpula e vendo frustradas as expectativas dominantes no encontro anterior, de que se tornariam mais relevantes no cenário mundial depois da crise, os Brics ainda procuram algo tangível para se justificar. Na reunião na cidade de Durban, encerrada na quarta-feira, limitaram-se a anunciar a criação de um fundo de reserva que socorrerá seus integrantes em caso de crise de liquidez.
O volume de recursos teoricamente mobilizados para esse fundo - um acordo de reserva de contingência, ou CRA, na sigla em inglês - impressiona. Seu patrimônio inicial é de US$ 100 bilhões. Nenhum dos participantes, porém, terá de transferir dinheiro de suas reservas. Trata-se, na verdade, de um compromisso de que, se um dos membros tiver problemas nas contas externas, os demais colocarão recursos à sua disposição.
Um anúncio desse tipo certamente evitou que a reunião de Durban ficasse marcada como uma espécie de fim de festa dos Brics. Até o início do ano passado, esses países eram apontados como os de maior resistência à crise, mas hoje sentem seus efeitos. A velocidade de crescimento se reduziu em todos, e em particular no Brasil, que cresceu apenas 0,9% em 2012.
Mas o ministro da Fazenda, Guido Mantega, afirmou que os Brics liderarão o crescimento mundial. "Vamos continuar crescendo, temos um dinamismo maior, temos de aproveitar melhor nossos mercados e nosso comércio", disse. Se o Brasil repetir neste ano o desempenho dos dois anos anteriores, pouco contribuirá para isso.
Para justificar as reuniões do grupo, seus dirigentes tentaram implementar a ideia de criação de um banco de desenvolvimento próprio, o "Banco dos Brics", para apoiar os investimentos nos países em desenvolvimento. Proposta pela Índia no início do ano passado, a criação desse banco vem sendo discutida desde então por representantes dos cinco países.
"Fizemos proposta para que o Banco dos Brics seja constituído em 2014", disse o ministro Guido Mantega. Não parece provável, porém, que os cinco países consigam superar suas divergências em tão pouco tempo.
Além da data de início das operações, as divergências incluem, entre outras questões, o local onde o banco se instalará, o sistema de escolha de sua diretoria e como serão selecionados os países aptos a receber seus financiamentos. O que está certo é que o capital do banco deverá ser fornecido pelos países do Brics, mas muitos deles enfrentam problemas internos que limitam sua capacidade de capitalizar a nova instituição. A Rússia, por exemplo, resiste à proposta de aporte inicial de US$ 10 bilhões de cada país, por considerá-la insuficiente.
A constituição do banco seria um avanço importante dos Brics e contribuiria para consolidar o grupo. Mas as questões que dividem os cinco países a respeito dessa instituição são apenas parte de suas muitas divergências. Em foros internacionais, como a ONU e a OMC, esses países têm assumido posições até conflitantes. Uma simples sigla está longe de ser suficientemente forte para levá-los a superar esses conflitos.
Apesar da descortesia do anfitrião, à qual respondeu retirando-se do local onde se reuniria com ele, a presidente Dilma Rousseff parece ter ficado satisfeita com os resultados do encontro de Durban. Segundo ela, o anúncio do fundo de contingência e a decisão de criar o Banco dos Brics foram "realizações" do Brasil, isto é, de seu governo. É bem possível que sejam, pois, como outras "realizações" de seu governo, também estas continuam no papel.

Brics Declaration: a more readable version

Received from some nasty people:

BRICS 2013 Declaration: a simplified version 

V BRICS Summit - Durban, March 27, 2013 eThekwini Declaration
What bureaucrats have written:	What presidents really think:
1. We, the leaders of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Russian Federation, the Republic of India, the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of South Africa, met in Durban, South Africa, on 27 March 2013 at the Fifth BRICS Summit. Our discussions took place under the overarching theme, “BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Development, Integration and Industrialisation”. The Fifth BRICS Summit concluded the first cycle of BRICS Summits and we reaffirmed our commitment to the promotion of international law, multilateralism and the central role of the United Nations (UN). Our discussions reflected our growing intra-BRICS solidarity as well as our shared goal to contribute positively to global peace, stability, development and cooperation. We also considered our role in the international system as based on an inclusive approach of shared solidarity and cooperation towards all nations and peoples.	1. Hello folks, here we are again.
2. We met at a time which requires that we consider issues of mutual interest and systemic importance in order to share concerns and to develop lasting solutions. We aim at progressively developing BRICS into a full-fledged mechanism of current and long-term coordination on a wide range of key issues of the world economy and politics. The prevailing global governance architecture is regulated by institutions which were conceived in circumstances when the international landscape in all its aspects was characterised by very different challenges and opportunities. As the global economy is being reshaped, we are committed to exploring new models and approaches towards more equitable development and inclusive global growth by emphasising complementarities and building on our respective economic strengths.	2. Times are hard.
3. We are open to increasing our engagement and cooperation with non-BRICS countries, in particular Emerging Market and Developing Countries (EMDCs), and relevant international and regional organisations, as envisioned in the Sanya Declaration. We will hold a Retreat together with African leaders after this Summit, under the theme, “Unlocking Africa’s potential: BRICS and Africa Cooperation on Infrastructure”. The Retreat is an opportunity for BRICS and African leaders to discuss how to strengthen cooperation between the BRICS countries and the African Continent.	3. Hello, out there…
4. Recognising the importance of regional integration for Africa’s sustainable growth, development and poverty eradication, we reaffirm our support for the Continent’s integration processes.	4. Africa advances…
5. Within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), we support African countries in their industrialisation process through stimulating foreign direct investment, knowledge exchange, capacity-building and diversification of imports from Africa. We acknowledge that infrastructure development in Africa is important and recognise the strides made by the African Union to identify and address the continent’s infrastructure challenges through the development of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), the AU NEPAD Africa Action Plan (2010-2015), the NEPAD Presidential Infrastructure Championing Initiative (PICI), as well as the Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plans that have identified priority infrastructure development projects that are critical to promoting regional integration and industrialisation. We will seek to stimulate infrastructure investment on the basis of mutual benefit to support industrial development, job-creation, skills development, food and nutrition security and poverty eradication and sustainable development in Africa. We therefore, reaffirm our support for sustainable infrastructure development in Africa.	5. … but there is much more to do.
6. We note policy actions in Europe, the US and Japan aimed at reducing tail-risks in the world economy. Some of these actions produce negative spillover effects on other economies of the world. Significant risks remain and the performance of the global economy still falls behind our expectations. As a result, uncertainty about strength and durability of the recovery and the direction of policy in some major economies remains high. In some key countries unemployment stays unusually elevated, while high levels of private and public indebtedness inhibit growth. In such circumstances, we reaffirm our strong commitment to support growth and foster financial stability. We also underscore the need for appropriate action to be taken by advanced economies in order to rebuild confidence, foster growth and secure a strong recovery.	6. Hegemonic countries want to export their crises to us…
7. Central Banks in advanced economies have responded with unconventional monetary policy actions which have increased global liquidity. While this may be consistent with domestic monetary policy mandates, major Central Banks should avoid the unintended consequences of these actions in the form of increased volatility of capital flows, currencies and commodity prices, which may have negative growth effects on other economies, in particular developing countries.	7. They insist with their financial tsunami.
8. We welcome the core objectives of the Russian Presidency in the G20 in 2013, in particular the efforts to increased financing for investment and ensure public debt sustainability aimed at ensuring strong, sustainable, inclusive and balanced growth and job creation around the world. We will also continue to prioritise the G20 development agenda as a vital element of global economic stability and long-term sustainable growth and job creation.	8. We’ll stick to our agenda.
9. Developing countries face challenges of infrastructure development due to insufficient long-term financing and foreign direct investment, especially investment in capital stock. This constrains global aggregate demand. BRICS cooperation towards more productive use of global financial resources can make a positive contribution to addressing this problem. In March 2012 we directed our Finance Ministers to examine the feasibility and viability of setting up a New Development Bank for mobilising resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other emerging economies and developing countries, to supplement the existing efforts of multilateral and regional financial institutions for global growth and development. Following the report from our Finance Ministers, we are satisfied that the establishment of a New Development Bank is feasible and viable. We have agreed to establish the New Development Bank. The initial contribution to the Bank should be substantial and sufficient for the Bank to be effective in financing infrastructure.	9. We’ll take care of our finances.
10. In June 2012, in our meeting in Los Cabos, we tasked our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to explore the construction of a financial safety net through the creation of a Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) amongst BRICS countries. They have concluded that the establishment of a self-managed contingent reserve arrangement would have a positive precautionary effect, help BRICS countries forestall short-term liquidity pressures, provide mutual support and further strengthen financial stability. It would also contribute to strengthening the global financial safety net and complement existing international arrangements as an additional line of defence. We are of the view that the establishment of the CRA with an initial size of US$ 100 billion is feasible and desirable subject to internal legal frameworks and appropriate safeguards. We direct our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to continue working towards its establishment.	10. China will borrow us some money.
11. We are grateful to our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors for the work undertaken on the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement and direct them to negotiate and conclude the agreements which will establish them. We will review progress made in these two initiatives at our next meeting in September 2013.	11. We’ll see how to expend it.
12. We welcome the conclusion between our Export-Import Banks (EXIM) and Development Banks, of both the “Multilateral Agreement on Cooperation and Co-financing for Sustainable Development” and, given the steep growth trajectory of the African continent and the significant infrastructure funding requirements directly emanating from this growth path, the “Multilateral Agreement on Infrastructure Co-Financing for Africa”.	12. There will be some money to Africa too.
13. We call for the reform of International Financial Institutions to make them more representative and to reflect the growing weight of BRICS and other developing countries. We remain concerned with the slow pace of the reform of the IMF. We see an urgent need to implement, as agreed, the 2010 International Monetary Fund (IMF) Governance and Quota Reform. We urge all members to take all necessary steps to achieve an agreement on the quota formula and complete the next general quota review by January 2014. The reform of the IMF should strengthen the voice and representation of the poorest members of the IMF, including Sub-Saharan Africa. All options should be explored, with an open mind, to achieve this. We support the reform and improvement of the international monetary system, with a broad-based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty. We welcome the discussion about the role of the SDR in the existing international monetary system including the composition of SDR’s basket of currencies. We support the IMF to make its surveillance framework more integrated and even-handed. The leadership selection of IFIs should be through an open, transparent and merit-based process and truly open to candidates from the emerging market economies and developing countries.	13. We don’t like Bretton Woods institutions.
14. We emphasise the importance of ensuring steady, adequate and predictable access to long term finance for developing countries from a variety of sources. We would like to see concerted global effort towards infrastructure financing and investment through the instrumentality of adequately resourced Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and Regional Development Banks (RDBs). We urge all parties to work towards an ambitious International Development Association(IDA)17 replenishment.	14. But we want more money from them.
15. We reaffirm our support for an open, transparent and rules-based multilateral trading system. We will continue in our efforts for the successful conclusion of the Doha Round, based on the progress made and in keeping with its mandate, while upholding the principles of transparency, inclusiveness and multilateralism. We are committed to ensure that new proposals and approaches to the Doha Round negotiations will reinforce the core principles and the developmental mandate of the Doha Round. We look forward to significant and meaningful deliverables that are balanced and address key development concerns of the poorest and most vulnerable WTO members, at the ninth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Bali.	15. WTO and Doha Round are already dead.
16. We note that the process is underway for the selection of a new WTO Director-General in 2013. We concur that the WTO requires a new leader who demonstrates a commitment to multilateralism and to enhancing the effectiveness of the WTO including through a commitment to support efforts that will lead to an expeditious conclusion of the DDA. We consider that the next Director-General of the WTO should be a representative of a developing country.	16. But we want to manage WTO.
17. We reaffirm the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) mandate as the focal point in the UN system dedicated to consider the interrelated issues of trade, investment, finance and technology from a development perspective. UNCTAD’s mandate and work are unique and necessary to deal with the challenges of development and growth in the increasingly interdependent global economy. We also reaffirm the importance of strengthening UNCTAD’s capacity to deliver on its programmes of consensus building, policy dialogue, research, technical cooperation and capacity building, so that it is better equipped to deliver on its development mandate.	17. UNCTAD is OK.
18. We acknowledge the important role that State Owned Companies (SOCs) play in the economy and encourage our SOCs to explore ways of cooperation, exchange of information and best practices.	18. Our State companies are great! We love them!
19. We recognise the fundamental role played by Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the economies of our countries. SMEs are major creators of jobs and wealth. In this regard, we will explore opportunities for cooperating in the field of SMEs and recognise the need for promoting dialogue among the respective Ministries and Agencies in charge of the theme, particularly with a view to promoting their international exchange and cooperation and fostering innovation, research and development.	19. Small companies exist too.
20. We reiterate our strong commitment to the United Nations (UN) as the foremost multilateral forum entrusted with bringing about hope, peace, order and sustainable development to the world. The UN enjoys universal membership and is at the centre of global governance and multilateralism. In this regard, we reaffirm the need for a comprehensive reform of the UN, including its Security Council, with a view to making it more representative, effective and efficient, so that it can be more responsive to global challenges. In this regard, China and Russia reiterate the importance they attach to the status of Brazil, India and South Africa in international affairs and support their aspiration to play a greater role in the UN.	20. Brazil and India continue to wait for the support of China and Russia in their bid for the UNSC (but are loosing their patience).
21. We underscore our commitment to work together in the UN to continue our cooperation and strengthen multilateral approaches in international relations based on the rule of law and anchored in the Charter of the United Nations.	21. UN is OK.
22. We are committed to building a harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity and reaffirm that the 21st century should be marked by peace, security, development, and cooperation. It is the overarching objective and strong shared desire for peace, security, development and cooperation that brought together BRICS countries.	22. We love peace, and love.
23. We welcome the twentieth Anniversary of the World Conference on Human Rights and of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and agree to explore cooperation in the field of human rights.	23. Here again those damned humanitarians with their nasty demands.
24. We commend the efforts of the international community and acknowledge the central role of the African Union (AU) and its Peace and Security Council in conflict resolution in Africa. We call upon the UNSC to enhance cooperation with the African Union, and its Peace and Security Council, pursuant to UNSC resolutions in this regard. We express our deep concern with instability stretching from North Africa, in particular the Sahel, and the Gulf of Guinea. We also remain concerned about reports of deterioration in humanitarian conditions in some countries.	24. Africa continues to be a miserable continent.
25. We welcome the appointment of the new Chairperson of the AU Commission as an affirmation of the leadership of women.	25. Women are great.
26. We express our deep concern with the deterioration of the security and humanitarian situation in Syria and condemn the increasing violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law as a result of continued violence. We believe that the Joint Communiqué of the Geneva Action Group provides a basis for resolution of the Syrian crisis and reaffirm our opposition to any further militarization of the conflict. A Syrian-led political process leading to a transition can be achieved only through broad national dialogue that meets the legitimate aspirations of all sections of Syrian society and respect for Syrian independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty as expressed by the Geneva Joint Communiqué and appropriate UNSC resolutions. We support the efforts of the UN-League of Arab States Joint Special Representative. In view of the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Syria, we call upon all parties to allow and facilitate immediate, safe, full and unimpeded access to humanitarian organisations to all in need of assistance. We urge all parties to ensure the safety of humanitarian workers.	26. We should continue to talk about Syria, but not too much. Hegemonic countries should stay away.
27. We welcome the admission of Palestine as an Observer State to the United Nations. We are concerned at the lack of progress in the Middle East Peace Process and call on the international community to assist both Israel and Palestine to work towards a two-state solution with a contiguous and economically viable Palestinian state, existing side by side in peace with Israel, within internationally recognized borders, based on those existing on 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. We are deeply concerned about the construction of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which is a violation of international law and harmful to the peace process. In recalling the primary responsibility of the UNSC in maintaining international peace and security, we note the importance that the Quartet reports regularly to the Council about its efforts, which should contribute to concrete progress.	27. We love the Palestinians.
28. We believe there is no alternative to a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. We recognise Iran´s right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy consistent with its international obligations, and support resolution of the issues involved through political and diplomatic means and dialogue, including between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran and in accordance with the provisions of the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions and consistent with Iran’s obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). We are concerned about threats of military action as well as unilateral sanctions. We note the recent talks held in Almaty and hope that all outstanding issues relating to Iran’s nuclear programme will be resolved through discussions and diplomatic means.	28. We should continue to talk about Iran’s nuclear programme, but not too much. Hegemonic countries should stay away.
29. Afghanistan needs time, development assistance and cooperation, preferential access to world markets, foreign investment and a clear end-state strategy to attain lasting peace and stability. We support the global community’s commitment to Afghanistan, enunciated at the Bonn International Conference in December 2011, to remain engaged over the transformation decade from 2015-2024. We affirm our commitment to support Afghanistan’s emergence as a peaceful, stable and democratic state, free of terrorism and extremism, and underscore the need for more effective regional and international cooperation for the stabilisation of Afghanistan, including by combating terrorism. We extend support to the efforts aimed at combating illicit traffic in opiates originating in Afghanistan within the framework of the Paris Pact.	29. Afghanistan is a mess, and will continue to be a mess, whatever “solution” is devised for that mess.
30. We commend the efforts of the AU, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Mali aimed at restoring sovereignty and territorial integrity of Mali. We support the civilian efforts of the Malian Government and its international community partners in realising the transitional programme leading up to the presidential and legislative elections. We emphasise the importance of political inclusiveness and economic and social development in order for Mali to achieve sustainable peace and stability. We express concern about the reports of the deterioration in humanitarian conditions in Mali and call upon the international community to continue to cooperate with Mali and its neighbouring countries in order to ensure humanitarian assistance to civilian population affected by the armed conflict.	30. Mali is a mess, but the fault is with the hegemonic countries.
31. We are gravely concerned with the deterioration in the current situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) and deplore the loss of life. We strongly condemn the abuses and acts of violence against the civilian population and urge all parties to the conflict to immediately cease hostilities and return to negotiations. We call upon all parties to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access. We are ready to work with the international community to assist in this endeavour and facilitate progress to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Brazil, Russia and China express their sympathy to the South African and Indian governments for the casualties that their citizens suffered in the CAR.	31. Central African Republic is a mess; we are becoming tired of all this African mess.
32. We are gravely concerned by the ongoing instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). We welcome the signing in Addis Ababa on 24 February 2013 of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Region. We support its independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty. We support the efforts of the UN, AU and sub-regional organisations to bring about peace, security and stability in the country.	32. Congo, whatever Congo could be, is a mess. We have already dropped it.
33. We reiterate our strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and stress that there can be no justification, whatsoever, for any acts of terrorism. We believe that the UN has a central role in coordinating international action against terrorism within the framework of the UN Charter and in accordance with principles and norms of international law. In this context, we support the implementation of the UN General Assembly Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and are determined to strengthen cooperation in countering this global threat. We also reiterate our call for concluding negotiations as soon as possible in the UN General Assembly on the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism and its adoption by all Member States and agreed to work together towards this objective.	33. Terrorism is a nuisance. We should talk about that too.
34. We recognize the critical positive role the Internet plays globally in promoting economic, social and cultural development. We believe it’s important to contribute to and participate in a peaceful, secure, and open cyberspace and we emphasise that security in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) through universally accepted norms, standards and practices is of paramount importance.	34. We do not want the internet controlled by the Americans.
35. We congratulate Brazil on hosting the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012 and welcome the outcome as reflected in “The Future we Want”, in particular, the reaffirmation of the Rio Principles and political commitment made towards sustainable development and poverty eradication while creating opportunities for BRICS partners to engage and cooperate in the development of the future Sustainable Development Goals.	35. Brazil is beautiful, albeit too expensive.
36. We congratulate India on the outcome of the 11th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Conference on Biological Diversity (CBD COP11) and the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.	36. India is fine, but it is a mess too.
37. While acknowledging that climate change is one of the greatest challenges and threats towards achieving sustainable development, we call on all parties to build on the decisions adopted in COP18/CMP8 in Doha, with a view to reaching a successful conclusion by 2015, of negotiations on the development of a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties, guided by its principles and provisions.	37. Developed countries should pay for the global warming; and they have to transfer some free technology to us.
38. We believe that the internationally agreed development goals including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) address the needs of developing countries, many of which continue to face developmental challenges, including widespread poverty and inequality. Low Income Countries (LICs) continue to face challenges that threaten the impressive growth performance of recent years. Volatility in food and other commodity prices have made food security an issue as well as constraining their sources of revenue. Progress in rebuilding macro-economic buffers has been relatively slow, partly due to measures adopted to mitigate the social impact of exogenous shocks. Many LICs are currently in a weaker position to deal with exogenous shocks given the more limited fiscal buffers and the constrained aid envelopes, which will affect their ability to sustain progress towards achieving the MDGs. We reiterate that individual countries, especially in Africa and other developing countries of the South, cannot achieve the MDGs on their own and therefore the centrality of Goal 8 on Global Partnerships for Development to achieve the MDGs should remain at the core of the global development discourse for the UN System. Furthermore, this requires the honouring of all commitments made in the outcome documents of previous major international conferences.	38. If developed countries want developing countries to achieve at least 10 per cent of the Millennium Development Goals, they should give more money.
39. We reiterate our commitment to work together for accelerated progress in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the target date of 2015, and we call upon other members of the international community to work towards the same objective. In this regard, we stress that the development agenda beyond 2015 should build on the MDG framework, keeping the focus on poverty eradication and human development, while addressing emerging challenges of development taking into consideration individual national circumstances of developing countries. In this regard the critical issue of the mobilization of means of implementation in assisting developing countries needs to be an overarching goal. It is important to ensure that any discussion on the UN development agenda, including the “Post 2015 Development Agenda” is an inclusive and transparent inter-Governmental process under a UN-wide process which is universal and broad based.	39. Millennium Development Goals are fine but we do not believe they will be reached.
40. We welcome the establishment of the Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in line with the Rio+20 Outcome Document which reaffirmed the Rio Principles of Sustainable Development as the basis for addressing new and emerging challenges. We are fully committed to a coordinated inter-governmental process for the elaboration of the UN development agenda.	40. Sustainability is fine; we like it.
41. We note the following meetings held in the implementation of the Delhi Action Plan:	41. There are too much meetings.
• Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs on the margins of UNGA.	Food was not famous last time.
• Meeting of National Security Advisors in New Delhi.	One of our guys was robbed in the last meeting.
• Meetings of Finance Ministers, and Central Bank Governors in Washington DC and Tokyo.	They love to talk about money.
• Meeting of Trade Ministers in Puerto Vallarta.	There is no hope, you who enter here.
• Meetings of Health Ministers in New Delhi and Geneva.	Attention to new flu strain.
42. We welcome the establishment of the BRICS Think Tanks Council and the BRICS Business Council and take note of the following meetings which were held in preparation for this Summit:	42. We think too, sometimes.
• Fifth Academic Forum	Talk and talk…
• Fourth Business Forum	Real discount, sales.
• Third Financial Forum	How much is the dollar?
43. We welcome the outcomes of the meeting of the BRICS Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors and endorse the Joint Communique of the Third Meeting of the BRICS Trade Ministers held in preparation for the Summit.	43. Those guys are too slow…
44. We are committed to forging a stronger partnership for common development. To this end, we adopt the eThekwini Action Plan.	44. We’ll meet again; we love each other.
45. We agree that the next summit cycles will, in principle, follow the sequence of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.	45. BRICS should be Brics. Or, perhaps: C + Bris?
46. Brazil, Russia, India and China extend their warm appreciation to the Government and people of South Africa for hosting the Fifth BRICS Summit in Durban.	46. Next time, try to meet with less Heads of State: Africa has too much.
47. Russia, India, China and South Africa convey their appreciation to Brazil for its offer to host the first Summit of the second cycle of BRICS Summits, i.e. the Sixth BRICS Summit in 2014 and convey their full support thereto.	47. Brazil should become less expensive.
eThekwini Action Plan:	More work to do…
1. Meeting of BRICS Ministers of Foreign Affairs on the margins of UNGA.	1. They are becoming tiresome.
2. Meeting of BRICS National Security Advisors.	2. Of what security are you talking?
3. Mid-term meeting of Sherpas and Sous-Sherpas.	3. Here come the per-diem slaves.
4. Meetings of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in the margins of G20 meetings, WB/IMF meetings, as well as stand-alone meetings, as required.	4. They love to compare exchange rates.
5. Meetings of BRICS Trade Ministers on the margins of multilateral events, or stand-alone meetings, as required.	5. We have to mask our protectionist moves…
6. Meeting of BRICS Ministers of Agriculture and Agrarian Development, preceded by a preparatory meeting of experts on agro-products and food security issues and the Meeting of Agriculture Expert Working Group.	6. Is there any food insecurity?
7. Meeting of BRICS Health Ministers and preparatory meetings.	7. Don’t kiss erratically.
8. Meeting of BRICS Officials responsible for population on the margins of relevant multilateral events.	8. We love people.
9. Meeting of BRICS Ministers of Science and Technology and meeting of BRICS Senior Officials on Science and Technology.	9. Will the new iPhone be there?
10. Meeting of BRICS Cooperatives.	10. Cooperate guys.
11. Meetings of financial and fiscal authorities in the margins of WB/IMF meetings as well as stand-alone meetings, as required.	11. Again, comparing exchange rates.
12. Meetings of the BRICS Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI).	12. Oh, forget Doha Round.
13. Meeting of the BRICS Friendship Cities and Local Governments Cooperation Forum.	13. Mayors love to travel too.
14. Meeting of the BRICS Urbanisation Forum.	14. And their architects.
15. Meeting of BRICS Competition Authorities in 2013 in New Delhi.	15. Too much competition is not always to prescribe.
16. 5th Meeting of BRICS Heads of National Statistical Institutions.	17. Damn statistics!
17. Consultations amongst BRICS Permanent Missions and/or Embassies, as appropriate, in New York, Vienna, Rome, Paris, Washington, Nairobi and Geneva, where appropriate.	17. Besides Nairobi, the rest is OK.
18. Consultative meeting of BRICS Senior Officials in the margins of relevant sustainable development, environment and climate related international fora, where appropriate.	18. Diplomats are made for travel.
Source: Brics Reflection Group; California.