As grandes linhas da política externa brasileira - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Republico aqui texto que havia sido postado neste mesmo Blog Diplomatizzando (05/06/2011; link: http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com/2011/06/grandes-etapas-da-diplomacia-brasileira.html), mas que ainda permanece válido em seus argumentos principais.

As grandes linhas da política externa brasileira

Paulo Roberto de Almeida *

Publicado, sob o título “Trajetória Coerente”, no suplemento “Pensar Brasil”, caderno especial “De Igual para Igual”, do jornal Estado de Minas (Belo Horizonte, Sábado, 9 de abril de 2011, p. 17-19).

A diplomacia brasileira seguiu, ao longo do último meio século, uma trajetória relativamente uniforme e coerente, embora marcada por alguns desvios momentâneos e por orientações políticas contrastantes, segundo as conjunturas políticas e os grandes alinhamentos observados em cada uma das grandes etapas do cenário internacional. Com algumas poucas exceções – possivelmente no imediato seguimento do golpe militar de 1964 e agora, recentemente, durante o governo Lula – ela seguiu invariavelmente algumas orientações básicas, ainda que animadas por preocupações diversas, todas elas comprometidas com o desenvolvimento nacional, a defesa da soberania e o comprometimento com o direito internacional, consubstanciado na Carta da ONU e em alguns outros instrumentos básicos das relações internacionais.

A política externa foi, pode-se dizer com total segurança, persistentemente “desenvolvimentista”. A exemplo da tendência dominante na política econômica, ela esteve engajada no processo de industrialização brasileira, embora atuando bem mais na política comercial (na qual o Itamaraty sempre conservou o “monopólio” negociador) do que na política industrial, onde ele foi ator coadjuvante. Essa foi a linha básica da diplomacia econômica brasileira desde a era Vargas até a atualidade: fazer com que as negociações comerciais externas – multilaterais ou regionais – não dificultassem o processo de industrialização, consumado com base em velhas receitas de substituição de importações e em forte protecionismo tarifário (que o Itamaraty se encarregou de defender junto ao Gatt, ao longo dos anos).

A outra grande vertente de atuação da diplomacia econômica consistiu na sustentação das dificuldades cambiais e de balanço de pagamentos, o que exigia do Itamaraty um bom trabalho junto aos principais credores, todos eles situados na América do Norte e na Europa ocidental. Empréstimos externos e atração de investimentos estrangeiros foram os dois elementos básicos nessa frente e pode-se dizer que o desempenho foi relativamente satisfatório, a despeito de crises desafiadoras no último terço do século XX (petróleo, dívida externa, crises financeiras nos mercados emergentes nos anos 1990). Mas esse tipo de negociação financeira estava mais bem afeta aos responsáveis econômicos e monetários do que aos funcionários do Itamaraty, que ainda assim ofereciam todo apoio nesse tipo de missão, quando não assumiram eles mesmos a responsabilidade pela condução do processo.

Outra área, entretanto, teve a colaboração crucial dos diplomatas para que ela pudesse se desenvolver, pelo menos até certo ponto: a capacitação do Brasil em matéria de enriquecimento nuclear e de domínio das tecnologias industriais ligadas à indústria nuclear para fins civis (energia), o que foi materializado no célebre acordo nuclear Brasil-Alemanha, de 1975 (depois descontinuado, a partir da crise dos anos 1980 e também por causa de fortes pressões contrárias dos Estados Unidos). Ocorreu, nesse setor, durante o governo militar, notável cooperação entre os militares e os diplomatas, inclusive porque ambas as corporações recusavam a adesão do Brasil ao Tratado de Não-Proliferação Nuclear (oferecido em 1968 à comunidade internacional pelas três potências nucleares signatárias, EUA, Reino Unido e União Soviética). Foi o momento de maior independência brasileira em relação aos EUA, depois de algumas décadas de alinhamento, no geral, coincidente com os grandes objetivos da maior potência ocidental, durante os anos da Guerra Fria.

De fato, o Brasil exibiu uma política externa razoavelmente alinhada com os EUA desde antes da Segunda Guerra Mundial, a começar pela renegociação das dívidas contraídas nos anos de entre-guerras e pela própria participação brasileira no conflito, a partir da qual os dirigentes diplomáticos e os líderes políticos brasileiros esperavam uma retribuição à altura, em especial a inclusão do País no seleto clube de grandes potências, experiência logo frustrada pela intransigência do Reino Unido e da União Soviética. Ainda assim, os anos do pós-guerra foram de colaboração e de quase pleno entendimento político, com a compreensão dos militares brasileiros e da grande maioria dos diplomatas em relação às prioridades e à grande estratégia dos EUA na era da Guerra Fria: a contenção da União Soviética e a luta contra a penetração e a influência comunistas em diversos países da periferia ou da própria Europa ocidental.

Os únicos pontos de desacordo se situavam justamente na cooperação econômica, com o Brasil e a maioria dos latino-americanos pedindo uma extensão ao continente da generosa ajuda para recuperação e reconstrução que os americanos prestavam à Europa no quadro do Plano Marshall. Os EUA nunca consentiram nessa extensão, inclusive porque consideravam, não sem razão, que os problemas da América Latina não eram exatamente de reconstrução, e sim de desenvolvimento, para o que recomendavam não ajuda estatal, mas reformas econômicas e abertura aos investimentos estrangeiros. A questão do financiamento ao desenvolvimento latino-americano foi resolvida mais adiante, com a criação do Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento, apenas depois de intensa pressão brasileira, notadamente através da Operação Pan-Americana, proposta pelo presidente Juscelino Kubitschek: tratou-se da primeira grande iniciativa brasileira em termos de liderança regional e de diplomacia multilateral, mesmo se limitada ao hemisfério americano.

Ainda assim, ela serviu para formar os diplomatas brasileiros nos novos temas da diplomacia do desenvolvimento e do multilateralismo econômico, bem como nos seus procedimentos específicos (em relação, por exemplo, à velha escolha da diplomacia bilateral, de caráter essencialmente político), o que iria ser extremamente útil nas negociações do Gatt, com a nascente Comunidade Econômica Europeia e nos novos acordos em torno dos produtos de base (café, cacau, açúcar, etc.). O Brasil tornou-se um dos principais promotores do movimento em favor da reforma do Gatt desde o final dos anos 1950, num sentido de não-reciprocidade e de concessões sem contrapartida, assim como participou ativamente do processo que conduziu à criação da Unctad (Conferência das Nações Unidas sobre Comércio e Desenvolvimento), tornando-se um dos líderes do grupo dos países em desenvolvimento (que veio a ficar conhecido como G77, do número de membros no momento de sua criação, em 1964).

O ponto alto dessa fase foi, evidentemente, a chamada “política externa independente”, quando o Brasil se liberta do estrito alinhamento aos cânones da Guerra Fria e passa a buscar oportunidades comerciais e de relacionamento político com os países socialistas e com as nações periféricas de modo geral. Entre os grandes temas debatidos nessa época esteve o de Cuba, cujo regime socialista foi considerado pela OEA como “incompatível com o sistema interamericano”, tese americana a que o Brasil se opôs por não haver, na Carta da OEA, nenhum caracterização quanto a regimes políticos. O Brasil, em todo caso, se absteve, quando a decisão foi votada, apoiado em argumentos essencialmente jurídicos esgrimidos pelo chanceler Santiago Dantas.

Ocorreu, então, a primeira ruptura, embora relativamente breve, nas linhas tradicionais da política externa brasileira, quando os militares, talvez para “agradecer” aos EUA a ajuda preventiva dada durante o golpe, concordam em sustentar a postura americana na região, participando da invasão da República Dominicana, contra uma revolução democrática em 1965. Foi, porém, um breve interlúdio, já que a partir de 1967, a diplomacia retomou sua postura desenvolvimentista e pela autonomia tecnológica (já dando início a um programa nuclear independente, que sofreria as referidas sanções americanas). Pelo resto do regime militar e também durante a fase de redemocratização, a diplomacia brasileira atuou com plena independência e profissionalismo, assumindo uma postura moderadamente terceiro-mundista e, certamente, desenvolvimentista. Conflitos pontuais se manifestam nas relações com os EUA, tanto no plano bilateral – fricções comerciais, política nuclear, justamente – como no plano multilateral – resoluções da ONU e temas da agenda do desenvolvimento nos quais os EUA geralmente se singularizavam pela postura oposicionista.

Desde essa época, e praticamente até hoje, a diplomacia brasileira vem construindo seu espaço próprio nos contextos regional e internacional, estimulando parcerias seletivas com alguns grandes países em desenvolvimento – em especial com a Índia, com a qual havia uma grande interface negociadora em temas comerciais – e colocando as bases de um grande espaço de integração econômica na América do Sul, primeiro via Alalc e Aladi, depois via Mercosul e outros esquemas sub-regionais. Ao promover a integração regional, a diplomacia brasileira sempre foi extremamente cautelosa em não proclamar qualquer veleidade de liderança brasileira no continente, muito facilmente confundida com pretensões hegemônicas e, portanto, recusada peremptoriamente pela maior parte dos vizinhos (com a possível exceção dos menores, interessados em algum tipo de barganha preferencial). Essa postura cuidadosa foi no entanto descurada pelo governo Lula, gerando resistências e contrariedades nos vizinhos mais importantes, que inclusive se mobilizaram contrariamente a um dos  objetivos de alguns governos brasileiros: a conquista de uma cadeira permanente no Conselho de Segurança da ONU.

O governo Lula, justamente, representou uma ruptura nos antigos padrões profissionais da diplomacia, introduzindo uma agenda partidária e ideológica que redundou, em diversos casos, em um infeliz alinhamento com ditaduras e violadores dos direitos humanos em diversos continentes, numa demonstração de anti-americanismo infantil e, em última instância, prejudicial à credibilidade da política externa brasileira. Felizmente, o novo governo Dilma restabeleceu padrões de comportamento e de votação nos foros multilaterais bem mais conformes à tradição diplomática brasileira, condizentes inclusive com princípios constitucionais sobre valores democráticos e a defesa dos direitos humanos e com o espírito verdadeiro da Carta da ONU.

* Diplomata de carreira e professor universitário; autor de diversos livros de relações internacionais (www.pralmeida.org).

Chamada: Diplomacia brasileira sempre se caracterizou pelo profissionalismo e por uma diplomacia de caráter nacional; regime militar e governo Lula representaram exceções nessa linha cautelosa e guiada por interesses nacionais, não partidários.

[2554; Brasília, 11 de março de 2011; rev. 12/03/2011]

A grande estrategia do Brasil: existe alguma? - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Republico abaixo um texto que escrevi em Fevereiro de 2011, e que ficou sem maior divulgação. Creio que ainda é válido.

Reflexões ao Léu, 6: A Grande Estratégia do Brasil

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

O Brasil possui uma estratégia, grande ou pequena? Talvez, embora nem sempre se perceba. Os militares talvez tenham pensado em alguma, e ela sempre envolve grandes meios, para defender as grandes causas: a soberania, a integridade territorial, a preservação da paz e da segurança no território nacional e no seu entorno imediato. Enfim, todas aquelas coisas que motivam os militares. Os diplomatas, também, talvez tenham escrito algo em torno disso, e ela sempre envolve o desenvolvimento nacional num ambiente de paz e cooperação com os vizinhos e parceiros da sociedade internacional, no pleno respeito dos compromissos internacionais e da defesa dos princípios e valores constitucionais, que por acaso se coadunam com a Carta da ONU. Mas eles também acham que está na hora de “democratizar” o sistema internacional, que ainda preserva traços do imediato pós-Segunda Guerra, ampliando o Conselho de Segurança da ONU, reformando as principais organizações econômicas multilaterais e ampliando as possibilidades de participação dos países em desenvolvimento nas instâncias decisórias mundiais; enfim, todo aquele discurso que vocês conhecem bem.

Tudo isso é sabido, e repassado a cada vez, nas conferências nacionais de estudos estratégicos, em grandes encontros diplomáticos, nos discursos protocolares dos líderes nacionais. Até parece que possuímos de fato uma grande estratégia, embora nem sempre isso seja percebido por todos os atores que dela participam, consciente ou inconscientemente. Aparentemente, ela seria feita dos seguintes elementos: manutenção de um ambiente de paz e cooperação no continente sul-americano e seu ambiente adjacente, num quadro de desenvolvimento econômico e social com oportunidades equivalentes para todos os vizinhos, visando a construção de um grande espaço econômico integrado, de coordenação e cooperação política, num ambiente democrático, engajado coletivamente na defesa dos direitos humanos e na promoção da prosperidade conjunta dos povos que ocupam esse espaço.

Muito bem, mas esses são objetivos genéricos, até meritórios e desejáveis, que precisam ser implementados de alguma forma, ou seja, promovidos por meio de iniciativas e medidas ativas, o que envolve inclusive a remoção dos obstáculos que se opõem à consecução desses grandes objetivos. É aqui que entra, de verdade, a grande estratégia, quando se tem de adequar os meios aos objetivos, não simplesmente na definição de metas genéricas. A estratégia é que permite se dizer como, e sob quais condições, o povo do país e suas lideranças vão mobilizar os recursos disponíveis, as ferramentas adequadas e os fatores contingentes – dos quais, os mais importantes são os agentes humanos – por meio dos quais será possível alcançar os grandes objetivos e afastar as ameaças que se lhes antepõem. Uma verdadeira estratégia diz o que deve ser feito, na parte ativa, e também, de maneira não simplesmente reativa, como devemos agir para que forças contrárias dificultem o atingimento das metas nacionais. 

Nesse sentido, se o grande objetivo brasileiro – que integra nesta concepção sua “grande estratégia” – é a consolidação de um espaço econômico democrático e de cooperação econômica no continente, devemos reconhecer que avançamos muito pouco nos últimos anos. A despeito da retórica governamental, não se pode dizer, atualmente, que a integração e a democracia progrediram tremendamente na última década. Ao contrário, olhando objetivamente, esses dois componentes até recuaram em várias partes, e não se sabe bem o que o Brasil fez para promovê-los ativamente. O presidente anterior foi visto abraçado com vários ditadores ou candidatos a tal, esqueceu-se de defender a liberdade de expressão, os valores democráticos e os direitos humanos onde eles foram, e continuam sendo, mais ameaçados, quando não vêm sendo extirpados ou já desapareceram por completo. A integração que realmente conta, a econômica e comercial, cedeu espaço a uma ilusória integração política e social que até pode ter rendido muitas viagens de burocratas e políticos, mas não parece ter ampliado mercados e consolidado a abertura econômica recíproca.

Desse ponto de vista, o Brasil parece ter falhado em sua grande estratégia, se é verdade que ele realmente possui uma. Se não possui, está na hora de pensar em elaborar a sua. Passada a retórica grandiloquente – contra-produtiva, aliás – da liderança e da união exclusiva e excludente, contra supostas ameaças imperiais, pode-se passar a trabalhar realisticamente na implementação da grande estratégia delineada sumariamente linhas acima. A julgar pelos primeiros passos, parece que começamos a retificar equívocos do passado recente e a enveredar por um caminho mais adequado e mais conforme a nossas velhas tradições diplomáticas.

Brasília, 9 de fevereiro de 2011

Petroleo no Brasil: entre Noruega e Venezuela - The Economist

Brazil’s economy

The devil in the deep-sea oil

Unless the government restrains itself, an oil boom risks feeding Brazil’s vices

The Economist, November 5th, 2011

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DEEP in the South Atlantic, a vast industrial operation is under way that Brazil’s leaders say will turn their country into an oil power by the end of this decade. If the ambitious plans of Petrobras, the national oil company, come to fruition, by 2020 Brazil will be producing 5m barrels per day, much of it from new offshore fields. That might make Brazil a top-five source of oil.

Managed wisely, this boom has the potential to do great good. Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, wants to use the oil money to pay for better education, health and infrastructure. She also wants to use the new fields to create a world-beating oil-services industry. But the bonanza also risks feeding some Brazilian vices: a spendthrift and corrupt political system; an over-mighty state and over-protected domestic market; and neglect of the virtues of saving, investment and training.

So it is worrying that there is far more debate in Brazil about how to spend the oil money than about how to develop the fields. If Brazil’s economy is to benefit from oil, rather than be dominated by it, a big chunk of the proceeds should be saved offshore and used to offset future recessions. But the more immediate risks lie in how the oil is extracted.

The government has established a complicated legal framework for the fields. It has vested their ownership in Pré-Sal Petróleo, a new state body whose job is merely to collect and spend the oil money. It has granted an operating monopoly to Petrobras (although the company can strike production-sharing agreements with private partners). The rationale was that, since everyone now knows where the oil is, the lion’s share of the profits should go to the nation. But this glides over the complexity in developing fields that lie up to 300km (190 miles) offshore, beneath 2km of water and up to 5km of salt and rock.

To develop the new fields, and build onshore facilities including refineries, Petrobras plans to invest $45 billion a year for the next five years, the largest investment programme of any oil firm in the world. That is too much, too soon, both for Petrobras and for Brazil—especially because the government has decreed that a large proportion of the necessary equipment and supplies be produced at home.

How to be Norway, not Venezuela

By demanding so much local content, the government may in fact be favouring some of the leading foreign oil-service companies. Many would have set up in Brazil anyway; now, with less price competition from abroad, they will find it easier to charge over the odds. Seeking to ramp up production so fast, and relying so heavily on local supplies, also risks starving non-oil businesses of capital and skilled labour (which is in desperately short supply). Oil money is already helping to drive up Brazil’s currency, the real, hurting manufacturers struggling with high taxes and poor infrastructure.

When it comes to oil, striking the right balance between the state and the private sector, and between national content and foreign expertise, is notoriously tricky. But it can be done. To kick-start an oil-services industry,Norway calibrated its national-content rules realistically in scope and duration, required foreign suppliers to work closely with local firms and forced Statoil, its national oil company, to bid against rivals to develop fields. Above all, it invested in training the workforce.

But Brazilians need only to look at Mexico’s Pemex to see the politicised bloat that can follow an oil boom—or atVenezuela to see how oil can corrupt a country. Petrobras is not Pemex. Thanks to a meritocratic culture, and the discipline of having some of its stock traded, Petrobras is a leader in deep-sea oil. But operating as a monopolist is a poor way to maintain that edge. Happily, too, Brazil is not Venezuela. Its leaders can prove it by changing the rules to be more Norwegian.

Brazil’s oil boom

Filling up the future

Its remarkable offshore oil bonanza could do Brazil a lot of good. But getting the most out of it will not be easy

Nov 5th 2011 | SÃO PAULO | from the print edition

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GEOLOGICAL structures of vast antiquity are more often called on to bolster the arguments of atheists than enlisted as tokens of a deity’s existence—let alone his nationality. But the deep Cretaceous salts which trap oil in rocks off Brazil’s coast are “strong evidence”, in the words of President Dilma Rousseff, “that God is Brazilian.” It is not a new conceit, but it has rarely been a more apposite one. The pré-sal(“below the salt”) oilfields look set to generate wealth on a scale that could transform Brazil’s economy.

Before the pré-sal finds, which started in 2007, the country’s total proven and probable reserves were 20 billion barrels. Conservative estimates for the total recoverablepré-sal oil now come in at 50 billion barrels: a little less than everything in the North Sea, all in the waters of one country. Optimists expect three times as much. “In the pré-sal area, our exploration has a success rate of 87%, compared with a world average of 20% to 25% for the industry,” says Sergio Gabrielli, the president of Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company.

The first shipment of pré-sal oil, 1m barrels from the Lula field (formerly known as Tupi), set sail for Chile in May. Petrobras is producing 100,000 barrels a day from the pré-sal, a third of it from the remarkably productive Lula test well (see map). By 2020 Petrobras expects to be pumping 4.9m barrels each day from Brazilian fields, 40% from the pré-sal, and exporting 1.5m: at the moment the country falls a little short of self-sufficiency. Today Brazil is the world’s 11th-largest oil producer. By 2020 it should be in the top five.

Becoming an oil exporter could complete the development process that began with the conquering of hyperinflation in 1994. Because the country’s previous period of economic development was brought to an end by the oil shocks of the 1970s, self-sufficiency in energy looks more than usually enticing to Brazilians. Plentiful hard currency looks good, too; it is just nine years since the country last had to borrow from the IMF to stabilise its currency. Petro-dollars will boost national saving—currently just 16% of GDP—creating room for Brazil to upgrade its decrepit infrastructure. And oil would add pleasingly to the geopolitical heft of a country keen to assert itself as a global power.

The possible missteps, though, are legion. Huge, technically challenging projects tend to run late and over budget everywhere. Last year’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a grim reminder of the risks in such “ultra-deep” drilling projects. And countries with big oil finds are prone to an ominous list of economic ailments: capital absorption (the diversion of funds from other worthwhile investments); Dutch disease (oil exports pushing the currency to a level that hurts other industries); and reform fatigue (governments’ unwillingness to tackle structural economic problems when they can see vast wealth on the horizon).

Since the pré-sal was discovered Brazil’s politicians have talked much less about reforming burdensome tax and labour laws. The corrupting tendency of oil is worrying in a country where the president has had to sack five ministers since taking office in January over accusations of illicit enrichment. Without a lot of care, oil might block development as much as spur it on. In the 1970s, looking at what its oil reserves might mean for Venezuela’s future in terms of waste, misallocated money and corruption, a former hydrocarbons minister, Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, did not thank a providential god; the country’s oil, he said, was but “the devil’s excrement”.

A key to success in the pré-sal is Petrobras. The company’s older offshore fields are deep enough that it already accounts for 22% of the world’s deepwater production. The pré-sal should give it the know-how to become the world leader in “ultra-deep” drilling, too, opening new possibilities for it off Africa (where the geology is similar) and beyond.

A moonshot under the ocean

But it is an extraordinary technical challenge, and not just because of the depth, and thus the pressure, at which the drills must operate (see diagram). New seismic techniques are needed to see what’s going on. The salt shifts during drilling. The oil comes out of its reservoirs very hot, and must then pass through wellheads that are only a few degrees above freezing. It is mixed with corrosive gases.

The dozens of floating production platforms required, which cost billions of dollars each, will be an uncommonly long way out to sea. Lengthy pipelines will have to be laid along the sea floor for the fields’ gas (flaring it is illegal, as well as a waste). Oodles more platforms will be needed to act as way-stations for helicopters ferrying personnel out and back. The distances would also hamper the response to a disaster. Mr Gabrielli has warned that more needs to be done to prepare for such a Deepwater-Horizon-style catastrophe, not just by Petrobras, but by the government and armed forces, too.

Pedro Cordeiro of Bain & Company, a consultancy, says all this makes developing the pré-sal a national commitment comparable to that of the Apollo programme. In terms of cost it is actually a good bit larger. Apollo cost less than $200 billion in today’s dollars; the total bill was a few percent of America’s annual GDP at the time. Ten years’ aggressive development of the pré-sal could take a trillion dollars, around half of Brazil’s 2010 GDP.

The lion’s share of the pré-sal investment will come through Petrobras. Last year it raised $25 billion in cash with a share offer plus the rights to 5 billion barrels of pré-sal in an oil-for-shares swap with the government. It will be borrowing another $47 billion in the next few years, and plans to raise $14 billion more by selling assets. It is already engaged in nearly 700 projects costing more than $25m each, mostly to do with the pré-sal, and it has plans for $224 billion in capital expenditure from 2011 to 2015. This will account for a tenth of Brazil’s gross fixed-capital formation over the next few years. Petrobras claims that exploiting the pré-sal will make it a bigger company than Exxon Mobil well within the decade.

For most of this year, though, the company’s share price has been falling. There are two linked concerns: overstretch and political interference. The oil-for-shares swap means the government now owns more of Petrobras than it did before the share offering (48%, up from 40%). It has always held a majority of voting shares.

The government’s role does not stop there. In the 1990s Petrobras was part-privatised and the system for allocating oil concessions was liberalised: concessions were to be sold at auctions in which any company, Brazilian or foreign, could bid equally. For the pré-sal, that model has been torn up. A new state enterprise, Pré-Sal Petróleo, will own all pré-sal deposits and can veto projects it deems not in the national interest. Future pré-sal concessions will be auctioned to consortia which must include Petrobras as their operator, with a stake of at least 30%. Once a consortium has pumped enough to cover its costs, what remains must be shared with the state: winning bids will usually be those that hand over more of this “profit oil”.

The oil is ours

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president at the time, justified these 2010 changes on the basis that “you offer risk-sharing contracts when there is risk. In the case of the pré-sal, we are sure.” This is a bit blithe. Mr Gabrielli has recently started emphasising the distinction between “exploration risk”, which seems low for the pré-sal, and “development risk”, which is high. And it is not obvious that a winning recipe needed more than tweaking. Brazil taxes oil relatively lightly. If the government felt it was underselling a close-to-sure thing it could have raised taxes on companies operating in the pré-sal. That would be a lot simpler than cost-plus calculations, which Norman Gall of the Fernand Braudel Institute, a São Paulo think-tank, expects to cause endless legal disputes. Adriano Pires, a Brazil-based energy consultant, says the changes to the regime have fed a perception of regulatory risk. He points to Lula’s worrying resurrection of a slogan from state-monopoly days: “The oil is ours.”

Compared with lumbering state-run oil firms like Mexico’s Pemex and Venezuela’s PDVSA, treated as cash cows and employers of last resort, partially privatised Petrobras is fit and strong.Colombia’s Ecopetrol is already following the Petrobras model, having placed some of its shares in the stockmarket, and Mexican politicians talk of similar steps. But navigating Brazil’s mixed economy is never easy, for companies or their leaders. Earlier this year a posse of shareholders cobbled together by the government ousted Roger Agnelli, president of the privatised mining company Vale, who had laid off workers in the credit crunch against Lula’s wishes and showed an excessive zeal for investment abroad.

So far Mr Gabrielli has handled such tensions rather niftily. But minority shareholders complain that the government is forcing the company to make uneconomic decisions. There are doubts as to whether it needs four new refineries when there is excess capacity abroad, and if so whether it makes sense to put two of them in the north-east, which pleases politicians but does not best serve markets. Then there is the purchase of supertankers from Brazilian yards with costs almost twice those of South Korea’s. The government, concerned about inflation, regularly stops Petrobras from putting up petrol prices in line with rising world prices. Mr Pires calculates it has lost at least 9 billion reais ($4 billion) in the past eight years as a result.

Such tricks may end up weakening the firm’s capacity to use its development expertise elsewhere. “By letting in competitors and letting Petrobras go abroad, [Brazil] created a real national champion,” says Sarah Ladislaw of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank. She thinks Petrobras’s recent decision to pull out of projects in Cuba, citing domestic commitments, may be evidence of overstretch. “Folks respect Petrobras and don’t want to see it pull back internationally to be hamstrung at home.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge for Petrobras will come from the strict local-content requirements the government is imposing on pré-salprojects. The government intends to make these progressively more demanding, applying them to the entire supply chain. By 2017 they may reach as high as 95% for some parts of it. The oil-and-gas supply chain, broadly defined, accounts for 10% of Brazil’s economy now. By 2020 its share should grow to 25%, say analysts.

Jobs for the boys from Brazil

The policy is meant to stop foreign suppliers from gouging Petrobras and its partners as they buy hardware by the $100 billion. It is also meant to stimulate domestic industry. “This is a very important demand pull on the Brazilian economy,” says Mr Gabrielli. “We think it will respond.” If it does, the benefits will be not only in quantity, but quality: a study by IPEA, a government-funded think-tank, found that Petrobras’s domestic suppliers were more technologically advanced and productive than the average Brazilian firm, and paid higher wages and more taxes.

New oil-and-gas service companies are already springing into being, providing everything from undersea electrical cabling to industrial quantities of popcorn (light, cheap and biodegradable, it can be thrown overboard to simulate the evolution of oil spills). A high-tech hub is forming around Cenpes, Petrobras’s research centre in Rio de Janeiro: leading service firms, including Baker Hughes, GE and Schlumberger, are building laboratories close by. The area will be the southern hemisphere’s largest research complex, says Petrobras. In the state of São Paulo, the port city of Santos will be transformed into a managerial hub, with bases for fleets of helicopters and support ships.

Nevertheless, forcing Petrobras and its partners to buy Brazilian, and international companies to locate themselves there, will push up costs and cause delays. According to Booz & Company, a consultancy, Brazilian suppliers to the oil and gas industry charge 10-40% more than world prices. Part of the problem is a scarcity of staff. Brazil’s labour market is already so tight that employers complain about a “labour blackout”. Petrobras itself is unlikely to suffer: it gets hundreds of applicants for each job. But its suppliers will struggle.

According to a wide-ranging study of the pré-sal’s impact by Mr Gall, most workers starting courses at Prominp, a government-funded trainer for the oil and gas industry, needed remedial Portuguese and arithmetic lessons before they could read manuals or carry out simple calculations. Many dropped out and quite a few who finished their training were still of too low a standard to work in the industry. When Aker Solutions, a Norwegian oil-services company, explained weak results in August, it cited an overspend in Brazil caused by “too many inexperienced people”.

The attempt to stimulate supply-chain industries is in part a way to offset the Dutch-disease damage of high exchange rates. Some of the inconvenient strength of the currency is down to high real interest rates which attract footloose foreign capital. But soaring commodity exports are another factor (see chart). Brazil is the world’s largest, or second-largest, exporter of iron ore, soyabeans, sugar, ethanol, coffee, poultry and beef. The commodity boom has led to a big improvement in Brazil’s terms of trade—and hard times for Brazilian industry. Imports, mostly of manufactured goods, have grown even faster than exports, and the country’s trade balance is now negative. Though the economy grew by 7.5% in 2010, and is forecast to grow by more than 3% this year, industrial output, long flat, is starting to fall.

Local-content rules for the oil industry may help, but are of little comfort to, say, dressmakers, who are unlikely to become part of Petrobras’s supply chain. And they may have unintended consequences beyond reducing the oil industry’s efficiency. Less spending outside Brazil by Petrobras and friends will reduce demand for foreign currency—thus pushing the real higher than it would be otherwise.

One way to counter Dutch disease is to raise productivity in the rest of the economy. Brazil is planning a fund to invest a good part of pré-salrevenues along these lines. Its aims, as yet ill-defined, include education, culture, science and technology, environmental sustainability and poverty eradication. Bain & Company, asked by Brazil’s national development bank to analyse the lessons of similar funds in Norway, Chile and elsewhere, said such spending could be worthwhile, provided clear targets were set and the money was professionally managed (not something the government’s penchant for appointing placemen makes likely). It also recommended spending on the sort of infrastructure that would benefit other industries and help to lower the cost of exports, such as roads and ports. With 60% of all of Brazil’s industrial investment currently in the oil and gas industry, according to the National Petroleum Industry Organisation, a trade body, that could be a welcome fillip.

But the sovereign fund may end up with little to invest in anything. A ferocious battle is being waged in Congress between the coastal states, which have in the past received most of the royalties from offshore oil, and the rest, which want a share. Until a solution is found, in the supreme court if need be, there can be no new pré-sal auctions. The answer will probably involve the federal share shrinking, which will be bad for the fund and its chances of strategic investment. State revenues, whichever the state, will go straight into current spending.

Still going Dutch

Made in Brazil

Tony Volpon of Nomura Securities, an investment bank, points to the disturbing possibility thatBrazil could already be suffering from the Dutch disease associated with success in the pré-sa l—without yet enjoying any of the benefits. “Brazil’s growing current-account deficit is similar to big investments in a company with present negative cashflows, but excellent earnings prospects,” he says. Most of the assets Brazilians hold abroad are low-yielding, such as treasury bonds; foreigners’ assets in Brazil earn much more. For a commodity exporter like Brazil, those growth expectations can only be met by large current-account surpluses.

Running the numbers, Mr Volpon reckons that the current strength of the real implies Brazil’s trade balance switching to surplus in a few years and then increasing by 20% or so year on year. Only thepré-sal, he thinks, can possibly justify such high expectations. If Petrobras disappoints by not producing oil quickly enough, it will find it difficult to go on attracting the foreign cash Brazil, and Petrobras, need. In consolation, though, the real would fall, providing a natural remedy for Dutch disease, and giving the rest of the economy time to breathe.

Mr Gabrielli, whose company plunges drill bits into the bowels of the Earth with a precision measured in centimetres, seems confident of steering a course that threads its way between the dangers of damaging haste and disappointing delay. For him, the providence invoked by Ms Rousseff lies not only in where the oil was found, but also when. “God hid it until Brazil was strong enough to cope,” he says with a laugh. It will soon become clear whether Mr Gabrielli is right.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida em Mandarim: educacao na America Latina

Recentemente, dei uma longa entrevista, por telefone e em inglês, a um jornalista chinês, Xingfu Zhu, do jornal de Shanghai Wenhui Daily. Não sei exatamente o que ele captou como informação.
O tema era a educação em países da América do Sul, que conheço apenas por leituras e visitas ocasionais para seminários acadêmicos.
Em todo caso, aqui vai a entrevista tal como publicada em chinês, seguida da tradução feita pelo Google, e portanto meio bizarra, para não dizer completamente deformada. Mas algo se pode reter.

Global window of Shanghai Wenhui Daily

Wave of student protests in Chile intensified

Neighbors began to reflect on their own system defects

South American countries:  "every family has its own problem" so far as education is concerned

Published on 2011 -10-21    Authored by  Xingfu Zhu of Shanghai Wenhui Daily

环球视窗

智利学生抗议浪潮愈演愈烈 邻国开始反思自身制度弊端 南美国家家家有本难念的教育经 日期：2011-10-21 作者：朱幸福 来源：文汇报

图片作者：  图片作者：  图片作者：  图片作者：

本报首席记者 朱幸福 (...) (本报巴西利亚10月19日专电)

Global window of Shanghai Wenhui Daily

Wave of student protests in Chile intensified

Neighbors began to reflect on their own system defects

South American countries:  "every family has its own problem" so far as education is concerned

Published on 2011 -10-21    Authored by  Xingfu Zhu of Shanghai Wenhui Daily

Photo by:

The newspaper's chief correspondent Xingfu Zhu 

    

    Since yesterday, the Chilean university student organizations to hold another two-day national protest, asking the Government to carry out major reforms in education, but to protest the government's negotiations with the students appeared rupture. Chilean President Peinie La [Sebastian Pinera] said, to calm the increasingly violent student protests, the government will not hesitate to act in accordance with an emergency security law.

Chile student protests have continued for 5 months now and the government has not yet reached any compromise. How should it treat the student movement in Chile? This long-running student movement in what direction the future development? South American countries like Chile, is there a higher education issues and challenges? 

To this end, the reporter visited the University of Brasilia Center, Professor of International Political Economy Paulo Roberto de Almeida and former Brazilian Minister of Culture Jeronimo Moscardo.

Chile - the political driving force behind the student movement

    

Almeida: Behind this student movement has a left-wing parties and trade unions in Chile's complex background, they use the student movement and the right-wing government led by President Peinie La rival. Peinie La Chilean right-wing parties on behalf of the President, advocating a market economy and privatization. Look at the student protest movement in Chile, one must distinguish between what is real education, which is Chile's left-wing parties and trade unions in the background waves. Currently, Chile is about two shares of political forces around the student movement against each other, do not give. Analysts here believe that the student movement in Chile, the trend may be gradually moving towards the development of radical and violent, political forces behind the contest will only end in the next general election through the ballot to decide.

As we all know, Chile is Latin America's economic model, a very high degree of openness of its economy, currently 80% of the world's economies signed a free trade agreement. Chilean government's economic management is also very good, in the 1990s, annual economic growth rate remained at 4% -6%, and low inflation, fiscal balance, known as the Latin American region "little tiger." According to the World Economic Forum evaluation report, Chile's economic competitiveness in Latin America ranked first, the world number 30.

Bad luck is that Chile's devastating earthquake in February last year, total direct economic loss of one-tenth of the gross domestic product. Has more than 20 billion in assets Peinie La president came to power in March last year started well, just waits to be held in Chile on the occasion, erupted in Chile this year, domestic large-scale student movement. Chile's education system is really lagging behind, with its global economic competitiveness is not commensurate in many places for improvement. However, the student movement in Chile too much violence associated with the color, the student movement has been the trade unions and leftist parties around, so that the education complex and politicized. Chile's market economy, from government to provide scholarships for students from poor families is necessary, but the student movement asked the Government to provide free education for all students, free lunch and transportation, how is this possible to do so.

Argentina - is now a hundred years ago the best regression

    

Almeida: Compared with the adjacent Chile, Argentina's economy and education in Latin America 100 years ago is the best, economic strength and quality of education comparable to Europe, France, Italy and other countries. Before the outbreak of World War I in 1913, Argentina's equivalent of the U.S. 70% of national income, now shrunk to 33% of the United States. Throughout the 20th century most of the time, the quality of education in Argentina is very good. However, Peronism in Argentina destroyed the economy and education. President Peron in the 1970s created a "union republic", the radical labor movement as a tool of political manipulation of President Peron, trade unions organized a strike in order to improve benefits often strike, Argentina's economic strength and quality of education was deteriorating.

Moscardo: Argentina's high level of education, high rates of highly educated population, the country engaged in academic research particularly large number of intellectuals, many Argentines have won the Nobel Prize. However, Argentina's academic education too much, quite far away from practical application. Because Argentina has too many college-educated intellectuals, people have too many ideas and positions, it is difficult to manage this country the government can not solve the many problems facing the country and crises. Brazil, on the contrary, highly educated population ratio in Brazil is relatively low, in the small number of pure academic research, it is easier to manage the Brazilian government.

Moscardo: Most of Chile's elite higher education in the United States, by the American "cultural imperialism" a great influence on government ministers are basically trained at Harvard University's elite. Opposite the University of Brazil, Brazil is not the best university education in Latin America, mainly the Portuguese colonialists left the problem, they do not want to Brazilians in the political control of their own. Brazilians are now in charge of their own university education, the university's influence began to increase. University education in Brazil the main problems currently facing is the increasing commercialization of university education, many large companies running the university, the university education as an industry to support, they need only to train personnel, university education seriously out of line with the national interest.

Brazil - "iron rice bowl" to reduce the quality of education

    

Almeida: Brazil today there are some very good public and private universities, such as some church-run universities and University of Sao Paulo, etc., but in the northern mountains and the Amazon region, some of the poor quality of university education. University education in Brazil today, the biggest problem is the weak teachers. Country has two million -300 million teachers, only half can be class, other teachers can only work in the administrative bureaucracy. In the class teacher, the professor who eat a "big pot", regardless of your level of education, we get the same wages, arouse the enthusiasm of the teacher's teaching is not up, the quality of education students worrying.

University education in Brazil caused by eating "iron rice bowl" of the main reason is that the education sector there are strong trade unions, some of them are in Brazil called "triad." The number of public university teacher income, not by the school, but by the trade unions have the final say. Brazilians pay taxes to the government, then the money sent to the Brazilian government at all levels of trade union organizations across the country, the teacher's salary is controlled by the trade unions. Trade unions in Brazil is now becoming a very popular industry, as long as the Department of Labor registered, you can get money from the government. Today, the Brazilian trade union monopoly of all schools, while other unions have opposed. Lerner insured Rover Education Brazil education law deeply influenced by extreme leftist ideas, people believe that egalitarianism and nationalization, against profits and capitalism.

On general education, primary school children in Brazil, only 50% of the students and secondary education. When the Brazilian high school students graduated from school, only about 15% of the people to go to college. Most private universities in Brazil, but in private universities, students from poor families to pay 200-2000 riyals per month (1.7 riyals equivalent to one U.S. dollars) tuition, very expensive, and the children of the rich more state universities, tuition is entirely free, this phenomenon is very unreasonable. Decline in the quality of education in Brazil, coupled with long-standing practice in this country, "de-industrialization" policy, as a constraint to enhance the global competitiveness of this country one of the obstacles.

In the South American countries, Peru's education, there are two extremes of good or bad. Hispanic Peru has a very good job, live in comfortable houses, mostly well-educated people. But in Peru, 60% -70% of the population is indigenous, living in the Amazon basin or the mountains, where the quality of education is poor. Peruvian Spanish is the official language of the law, while the Indians inhabited the promotion of bilingual education. However, the Indians received the right track in terms of education there is still a lot of obstacles, the Government of Peru to promote bilingual education and reduce inequalities between whites and Indians continue to face enormous challenges.

(Filed from Brasilia  on October 19)