Foreign Investment in Brazil and the International Financial Markets
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LC/BRS/DT.014 February, 1998 Original: English ECLAC ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN Brasilia Office FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN BRAZIL AND THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL MARKETS Document prepared by Renato Baumann, Officer-in-Charge of ECLAC Brasilia Office for presentation at the Conference "Brazil in the World Context" (London, February, 1998). The views and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of ECLAC. 1 FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN BRAZIL AND THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL MARKETS * Renato Baumann I - Introduction As in several other developing economies, foreign investment has reached historically high record levels in recent years in Brazil, both as direct and as portfolio investment. The Brazilian case is particularly remarkable because in comparison to other developing economies the country was the major absorber of foreign resources until the late 1970s and presents perhaps the largest stock of foreign-owned capital. In spite of these credentials, Brazilian access to international capital markets remained rather limited for more than a decade. Reasons for these recent changes are to be found in the favorable international scenario as well as in the various policy measures implemented since the late 1980s but more intensely after 1991 (mostly portfolio) and 1994 (direct investment). Easier access to capital flows had remarkable effects on the Brazilian economy by reducing the financing cost of economic agents, financing current account imbalances, helping domestic price stabilization and fostering growth, among other benefits. But as most policy strategies, reliance on external financing has provoked sharp domestic criticism, in particular from those who fear the vulnerability associated with an increasing exposure to the variability of the international capital market. Forecasts regarding the near future are hence not clear. Optimists tend to stress the attractiveness of an economy that offers expressive opportunities for investors, whereas pessimists put emphasis in the likely effects of the recent Asian crisis and on the weaknesses of the international monetary system as a whole. This paper aims at discussing these points. Next section presents some basic characteristics of recent trends of investment in developing economies in general and the third section discusses the major characteristics of foreign investment in Brazil, the fourth section presents the major pessimistic and optimistic views with regard to investment (actually, access to capital markets as a whole) in the coming years and the fifth section presents some final remarks. The paper contains also an Annex with recent Brazilian policies towards foreign investment. * UN/ECLAC and Universidade de Brasilia. Paper prepared for presentation at the ConferenceBrazil in the World Context (London, February 1998). Comments by Ricardo Bielschowsky and Carlos Mussi were very helpful in improving a preliminary version of this paper. Opinions herein are my own and do not necessarily correspond to any institutional position. 2 II - An Overview of Recent Trends of Foreign Investment into Developing Economies The 1980s were a decade of financial hardship for most developing economies, specially in Latin America and Africa. The limited access to the international capital market was a major constraint on growth throughout the decade and had to be overcome in part by unprecedented use of bilateral public credit and financing programs from multilateral agencies. Since the beginning of the 1990s private capital has replaced public sector aid as the major lubricant of economic activity. The reasons for such change are varied but most analysts would emphasize: a) the adoption of consistent macro-economic policies, in particular with regard to successful price stabilization (specially in Latin America); b) the spread of market economies, including an accelerating deregulation of private capital flows; c) privatization policies; d) increasing portfolio diversification by foreign firms and institutional investors; and e) the very liberalization of world trade - both regionally and at a multilateral level - as well as the liberalization of foreign investment regimes. The renewed access to private capital markets was favored by changes in policy approach at the same time that led developing countries into a dispute around creating the most favorable domestic climate for private investors. Qualification of human resources, availability of infrastructure, socio-political stability, and a well-functioning judiciary system have become common universal goals for policy-makers in these countries. The new scenario led also to unprecedented changes in the sources of capital. As different from previous bilateral relations with other countries or multilateral agencies (with clear political components) private capital markets now depend heavily on the profit-maximizing strategies of economic agents such as pension funds, transnational corporations and banks. These flows are therefore highly sensitive to arbitrage opportunities as well as to expectations. Adjustment efforts by developing countries would not be sufficient, however, to generate foreign investment of the magnitude that has taken place recently. It is arbitrage opportunities and favorable expectations more than anything else what has driven investors towards emerging markets. With these markets providing higher long-term returns than mature economies, the decision to invest there is appealing (Calvo/ Leiderman/Reinhart (1993), Peyman (1996)). The expansion of international production and investment was also strengthened by the ongoing liberalization of direct investment regimes. The trend towards greater liberalization is illustrated, for instance, by the 98 changes that took place in the direction of investment liberalization and promotion in 1996, out of a total number of 114 changes in investment regimes introduced during that year in 65 countries. Over the period 1991 96 some 95 per cent of a total of 599 changes in the regulatory FDI regimes of countries were in the direction of liberalization, according to UNCTAD (1997). The liberalization of direct investment is also reflected in the increase in the number of bilateral investment treaties. As of January 1997, there were 1,330 such 3 treaties in the world, involving 163 countries, a threefold increase in half a decade, and around 180 such treaties were concluded in 1996 alone (UNCTAD (1997)). Thanks to the pronounced differential of returns, the expressive changes in recent policy-making in developing countries and other favorable factors these economies have attracted an increasing part of the available resources: in 1996 some 37% of global foreign direct investment flows went to developing countries (compared to 17.4% on average in 1985-90), with a high concentration of these flows (China accounted for about one-third of all direct investment to developing countries in 1996). Evidence suggest a good relation between the inflow of foreign capital and economic growth, although the type of capital flow and its domestic channeling do matter. Take, for instance, the two major experiences of Latin American countries with capital inflow. In the 1970s regional GDP grew on average some 5.6% per annum and investment 7.3%. In the second half of that decade the investment rate was the highest ever. In the early 1990s average GDP growth was 3.6% between 1990 and 1994 (compared to only 1.2% in the 1980s). But this growth has hardly led to any increase in investment: investment growth was much less than the inflow of capital, indicating that a good part of the latter actually financed consumption and there is evidence that easier access to external savings has actually contributed to reduce domestic savings (Ffrench- Davis/Griffith-Jones (1997), Ffrench-Davis/Reisen (1997), Uthoff/Titelman (1997)). A boom of foreign investment is therefore by and large determined primarily by the actual international conditions; it helps to overcome structural constraints and thus helps the recipient economy to achieve higher growth output rate, but may be a mixed blessing when there is no concern with the type of resources and the actual use the economy makes of them. The international scenario that has allowed such increase in capital flows is better understood with a bit of historical perspective. The end of the so-called Bretton Woods monetary system (when the rather fixed parities among the most important currencies led policy-makers to concentrate on domestic variables, taking the exchange rate as given) led - after some experiments like the European “snake” and several agreements among the members of the G-7 - to the present “non-system”, where the US dollar remains the most important currency, inflation rates are rather low in historical terms, there is moderate growth in the industrial countries, international capital flows are intense, but bilateral exchange rates fluctuate with unprecedented intensity. In such economic environment the international markets demand higher discipline from local authorities, since macro-economic disequilibria are bound to be punished by the market via capital flows1, the differences of domestic conditions in various economies give margin to intense profit-seeking speculation with currencies, and the private sector on its turn is forced to hedge against the costs of fluctuating exchange rates. As part of the conditions imposed by this new context, countries were led to liberalize