2008 July 25 | IndusLatin

Promoting India Latin America Collaboration

Firme demanda de alimentos

July 25th, 2008 Posted in Agriculture, Argentina, Food and Beverages

Este crecimiento económico trae aparejado un aumento del poder adquisitivo de la población y una sustancial mejora del ingreso per cápita, lo que produce en forma inmediata una mayor demanda de alimentos con mayor valor agregado y mejor poder calórico y nutricional.

El consumo de carnes rojas y blancas en importantes franjas de la población de China, la India y Asia Pacifico, ha incorporado al mercado consumidor cientos de millones de personas que no quieren volver a su situación previa. En este contexto la Argentina ocupa un lugar de privilegio en el mercado mundial de agroalimentos, integrando el reducido núcleo de países productores y exportadores.

Existen tres países que exportan productos derivados de la soja, y la Argentina es el principal oferente mundial. Existen no más de 5 países que exportan carne vacuna y la Argentina podría haber llegado a ocupar un lugar entre los primeros, pero ha sido superado ampliamente por la política agroexportadora implementada por Brasil, y también desplazado por las exportaciones de carne vacuna de la India (el país de las vacas sagradas), hoy tercer exportador mundial. Hasta Uruguay, con una superficie menor a la provincia de Buenos Aires, ha desplazado a la Argentina en el mercado internacional de carnes, y muy rápidamente lo hará también Paraguay, y si nos descuidamos Bolivia. ¿Qué nos pasa a los argentinos que no podemos ver la realidad y por dónde pasa hoy el mundo?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Brazilian Real Strengthens to Nine-Year High on Yield Advantage

July 25th, 2008 Posted in Brazil, Economics - Indicators, Policy and Trends

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Bloomberg.com: Latin America

Brazil’s real strengthened to a nine-year high for a second consecutive day as rising interest rates lure investors to the nation’s fixed income securities.

The real advanced 0.4 percent to 1.5716 per dollar at 9:12 a.m. New York time, from 1.5781 yesterday. The currency touched 1.57, the strongest since January 1999. The real has gained 13 percent this year, the biggest advance against the dollar among the 16 most-actively traded currencies.

Brazil’s central bank raised the overnight lending rate 0.75 percentage points to 13 percent on July 23, the most in five years. The increase boosted the attractiveness of the investment-grade country’s bonds and interest-rate futures, said Gerson de Nobrega of Banco Alfa.

“The conditions are excellent for foreign investors,” said Nobrega, head of the bank’s treasury desk in Sao Paulo. “The inflows have been very positive.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

Oil Below $120 Will Reverse `BR-IC’ Fortunes:

July 25th, 2008 Posted in BRICs, Economics - Indicators, Policy and Trends, Energy

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Bloomberg.com: Opinion

If the price of oil goes below $120 a barrel (from about $126 yesterday), if China’s annual inflation rate slows to 5 percent (from 7.1 percent last month), and if the U.S. banking crisis comes to an end, then the sagging fortunes of equity markets in the two Asian countries may reverse in relation to their better-performing “BRIC” cousins: Brazil and Russia.

At the beginning of this year, Indian and Chinese stock markets, taken together, were almost three times as large as the combined value of shares traded in Brazil and Russia.

Since then, the gap has almost halved.

Brazil’s Bovespa Index, the world’s 10th-best-performing, has risen more than 5 percent in U.S. dollar terms this year, while Russia’s Micex Index has declined 11 percent.

By comparison, Indian and Chinese benchmarks have taken a hammering, falling 36 percent and 42 percent, respectively.

BRIC has become “BR-IC”: two disjointed halves.

With runaway commodity prices, such an outcome was only to be expected. After all, Brazil and Russia produce a lot of the stuff that 2.3 billion people in India and China guzzle.

By contrast, Indian and Chinese energy and resource producers have little exportable surplus and are forced to satisfy domestic demand at less-than-remunerative prices.

These companies have, therefore, been nowhere as appealing to investors as their counterparts in Brazil and Russia.

Technorati Tags: BRICs

Popularity: 4% [?]

Map depicting Oil Economics

July 25th, 2008 Posted in Energy, Visualizations

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Energy Bulletin

Popularity: 3% [?]

Cars vs. Bus vs. Bikes

July 25th, 2008 Posted in India, Latin America, Public Policy, Visualizations

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Something for the urban planners, if they find a voice in decision making, in megacities like Mumbai and Sao Paulo to keep in mind.
Core77 / design magazine

A poster in the city of Meunster’s Planning Office shows the amount of space taken up by cars, a bus, and bicycles used to transport the same number of people.

The accompanying numbers:
* Bicycle: 72 people are transported on 72 bikes, which requires 90 square meters.
* Car: Based on an average occupancy of 1.2 people per car, 60 cars are
needed to transport 72 people, which takes 1,000 square meters.

* Bus: 72 people can be transported on 1 bus, which only requires
30 square meters of space and no permanent parking space, since it can
be parked
elsewhere.

Popularity: 3% [?]

World maps denoting ‘solar-richness’

July 25th, 2008 Posted in Energy, India

1 Comment »

Vividly demonstrating why companies and entrepreneurs in India and Latin America, especially Mexico and Brazil, should do surya namasakar or sun salutations together, metaphorically speaking; in the real world, collaborate on developing and commercializing low-cost solar energy technologies.