Brazil’s Economy Could Be Primed for a Comeback Going into the World Cup

常年足球电力巴西正在举办2014年国际FIFA世界杯。巴西男子的国家队赢得了比赛五次 - 比任何其他国家都多 - 并持有大多数目标的记录。赢得下一个世界杯的最爱也是在经济上从估计的330万张门票中受益，以及额外的旅游收入，这将流入该国。然而，当谈到巴西的经济整体时，在过去的一年里，市场并未在游戏中尽可能充分地看到世界杯主持人。

投资最喜欢的2008年金融危机那Brazil has watched its image slip among global investors to the bottom of the league standings. It was recently included as part of the so-called Fragile Five, the five emerging markets whose currencies were deemed by Morgan Stanley strategists the most vulnerable. Global emerging-markets equity fund portfolios havereduced their exposure to Brazil根据来自研究公司Lipper的资金数据，2012年第二季度2012年第二季度的13.4％至8月份。

但也许市场已经判断巴西太严厉了。该国在20世纪90年代的一系列改革中突出了一系列改革，从而改变了关键变化和相对良好的宏观经济政策，仍在播放。然而，随着条件的变化，巴西需要适应其游戏计划。其主要目标应包括另一轮改革，以及持续的基础设施改善和吸引投资的措施。(Read more: “随着全球流动性干燥，新兴市场面临挑战”)

Brazil laid most of the groundwork for its structural reforms in the late 1990s. Compared with other emerging-markets countries, Brazil falls in the middle of the pack in terms of corruption perception, ease of doing business, human development, economic freedom and global competitiveness. After initial strong improvements on the sociopolitical side, Brazil has largely moved sideways since the global financial crisis; it has failed to use the past few years to improve its position further and missed a good opportunity to raise its growth level. Standard & Poor’s put Brazil on negative watch a few months ago, and Moody’s has recently downgraded the country’s rating outlook to stable, citing a requirement of GDP growth above 3 percent to turn the outlook positive again.

总统迪尔玛•罗塞夫和她的政府哈ve recognized the challenges to long-term growth since she took office on January 1, 2011. So has the electorate, if the widespread street protests this June were any indication. Policymakers have started to respond, albeit not as coherently as we at Investec would have liked. There has been some progress, including important structural changes to the savings rate and required real pension return, and tax reductions in fuel and vehicles designed to control inflation and support economic activity.

Another point in Brazil’s favor: Its current accounts and external vulnerability are not only substantially better than the rest of the Fragile Five (see charts), but they are also performing at levels at or above many other emerging markets. Brazil has a strong defense by way of its $376 billion in reserves and a central bank that is not afraid of preventing currency shocks. On the other hand, much has been made of Brazil’s current-account deficit, but we would argue that these concerns are a bit unwarranted. First, the negative forecast stemming from a sluggish start to the year fails to take into account the causes behind the poor numbers. Second, although undoubtedly there will be a modest increase in the deficit this year, closer analysis is warranted. Third, we should examine the factors behind the gradual improvement we see happening this quarter and into 2014.

Much of the downturn in the current-account deficit during the first half of 2013 was on the back of a sharp drop in the country’s trade surplus. Brazil’s oil and distillate trade posted two quarters of sizable deficits, driven by lower crude oil production. This decline is expected to normalize by year-end. Investment, which contracted by some 4 percent in 2012, has also put modest pressure on the trade account, as capital goods imports increased. Exports are likely to bounce back, helped by stable iron ore prices and stronger crop yields after weather-related problems in 2012. Stabilizing growth in China and the pickup in activity in neighbor and major trading partner Argentina also stand to favor Brazil with regard to its balance of trade.

巴西应继续吸引大量的外国直接投资，预计2013年将达到约650亿美元，并将涵盖其当前账户融资的大多数但并非全部。投资组合流量也有望增加。固定收入流入已从六月废除金融交易税收的推动，这一举动使投资者的信心。

Two factors that could hamper Brazil’s rebound are low savings and investment levels. Its savings rate staggers behind that of other Latin American and global emerging-markets peers. The country needs to boost investment to above 20 percent of its GDP. Private sector investment has been largely stagnant during the past three years. The system is too heavily dependent on the public sector, but government efforts thus far to boost infrastructure investment and encourage private sector participation have not met with much success.

Brazil remains a relatively closed economy, and growth in recent years has been driven by domestic consumption. The recent moderation in real wage growth, combined with modest interest rate tightening and stronger investment, is starting to aid production and soften consumption within the economy. However, there is a lot more work to be done. The challenge is to add capacity to bolster long-term trend growth and lower inflation structurally, rather than only cyclically.

投资和建筑基础设施将对预算权衡，政府不得不平衡长期目标和维持健全的宏观经济框架。巴西的复杂税法也对生产产生了令人窒息的影响。但与此同时，巴西已经采取了简化其税法的步骤 - 希望刺激国内外私人投资 - 已减少收入。这种公共金库的干燥已经通过利率加息和充满挑战的全球环境的影响。近年来债务到GDP水平稳步改善，可能侧身趋势。这对巴西自己的表现令人失望，但与全球同行相比，这么少。

央行的通胀目标一直在e of Brazil’s macroeconomic successes in recent years. In turn, this policy ?has helped force real interest rates lower. Inflation has hovered near inflation targets during the past decade. Real yield compression has fizzled out, however, and remains very high by global standards. High levels of inflation on services, reflecting the past decade’s policy emphasis on minimum-wage hikes and social spending at the expense of capacity creation, are largely to blame and will need to be addressed before the inflation range can move structurally lower.

最近，通货膨胀期望一直推向央行目标范围的高端，引发强大的政策响应，以短期利率和侵略性的货币干预为预防溢出效应，以防止溢出效应较大的溢出效应。在未来几个月，尽管季节性模式较低，但是，最终的通货膨胀应降低。这一趋势的大部分可能源于2012年的高层，并落下食品通货膨胀，含有上涨期望并允许利率远足循环停止。随着陡峭的曲线和非常高的真实收益率，当五年的实际利率与南非，印度尼西亚和俄罗斯等新兴市场同行的通胀率相比，市场提供相对价值。但是，巴西在解决长期挑战方面没有进一步进展，很难预测现实产量的进一步可持续性。

Vivienne Taberer是一个投资组合经理，拥有Investec Asset Management的新兴市场固定收入团队。

阅读更多信息固定收入资产管理。