【2009.10.04 彭博社】Olympics Give Brazil ‘Shot in the Arm,’ World Bank’s Cox Says

rhapsody

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aH9jBtZBsdnA

By Joshua Goodman

Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will give Brazil’s economy a “shot in the arm” as it leads other Latin American countries out of the crisis, said Pamela Cox, the World Bank’s vice president for the region.

“Ever since Rio lost the capital to Brasilia in 1960, we’ve seen a shifting out” of business, investment and government, said Cox in an interview yesterday. “We’re very hopeful this will help the city reinvent itself.”

Brazil, thanks in part to a domestic market of 192 million people, will help drive 2.9 percent growth across Latin America and the Caribbean next year, the International Monetary Fund said Oct. 1. That’s faster than the 2.3 percent estimated by the IMF in July. Brazil will grow 3.5 percent, after shrinking an estimated 0.7 percent this year, the IMF said.

The Washington-based multilateral lender will help Brazil accelerate $11.1 billion in mostly infrastructure investments needed to host the games, an amount that exceeded projected spending by rival finalist Chicago ten times.

Last week in Rio, Cox signed a $212 million loan to help the state government purchase at least 30 trains for its suburban rail network. With the city government, it’s negotiating a $480 million loan to improve public administration of the health and educational systems.

Murders

Such investments, Cox said, will help reduce crime and violence that residents fear could cast a pall over the games. Rio recorded 2,069 murders last year compared with 510 for Chicago. The State Department on its Web site warns Americans traveling to the so-called “Marvellous City” that they’re frequently targeted at major tourist destinations by criminals.

Cox said Mexico and countries in Central America that depend heavily on exports and remittances from the U.S. “have a much longer way to climb.”

Of the 60 million people in the region who rose out of poverty since 2002, about 10 million were pushed back during the crisis.

Still, policies adopted during the last decade to reduce debt loads and accumulate foreign currency reserves helped the region weather the crisis relatively well, she said.

“They learned their lessons well,” said Cox, who expects the World Bank to repeat next year the record lending of $14 billion during its 2009 fiscal year than ended in June 30, most of that focused on infrastructure and education.

“Our message is that ‘phew, you got through the crises, and now the competitiveness agenda is back on the table,’” she said.

The region spends per capita the same amount on education as South Korea and Eastern Europe, with “very poor” results, Cox said. Infrastructure bottlenecks add an estimated 25 percent to costs of its exports, she added.

“In Peru it takes two weeks to get a container through the port while places like Singapore and China can turn a container around in hours,” she said. “It’s not just infrastructure, it’s also the customs clearing, the bureaucracy -- time is money and countries are competing more and more.”

rhapsody

摘译发布于：http://bbs.m4.cn/thread-202130-1-1.html