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Strategies & Market Trends : Telebras (TBH) & Brazil -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (1219)	3/16/1998 7:39:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22640

Brazil's GDP could grow 8.5 pct/yr in decade-study SAO PAULO, March 16 (Reuters) - Brazil's economy could grow 8.5 percent a year over the next decade and productivity could be boosted by 50 percent to Japanese levels by 2005, even without heavy investment, according to a study by the U.S. consulting firm McKinsey. biz.yahoo.com

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (1219)	3/16/1998 7:43:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 22640

Brazil court sees key cellphone ruling on March 25 SAO PAULO, March 16 (Reuters) - A Brazilian high court was slated next week to issue a ruling that would clear the way for Brazil to proceed with the privatization of its key cellular telephone sector, an official said Monday. biz.yahoo.com

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (1219)	3/16/1998 7:46:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22640

Most Brazilians support 'Plano Real' - poll Reuters, Monday, March 16, 1998 at 15:05 SAO PAULO, March 16 (Reuters) - Most Brazilians support the government's "Plano Real" economic stabilization program despite worries that unemployment will keep rising, a poll published Monday said. The survey conducted by Datafolha, the polling unit of local daily Folha de Sao Paulo, found that 53 percent of Brazilians favor the inflation-busting plan. Only 14 percent said it was a failure. The poll, which surveyed 2,980 people March 10-11, has a two percent margin of error. The plan, backed by a strong currency known as the "real" and high interest rates, has wrestled annual inflation down from a dizzying 2,700 percent at its outset in July 1994 to about 4.5 percent today. The plan's approval rating was virtually unchanged from December, when 54 percent of those polled said they favored it. But its popularity has fallen since before the Asian crisis, when some 64 percent of respondents approved of it, Datafolha said. Despite support for the plan, there are worries that Brazil's unemployment rate, which stood at 7.25 percent in January, would keep rising, the poll found. Sixty-three percent of those questioned said they expected unemployment to rise in the coming months. But that number is lower than in December, when 70 percent of Datafolha respondents said they expected a rise in the jobless rate. Unemployment jumped in January as interest rate hikes and budget cuts - designed to support the local currency from speculators - began taking their effect on the economy. Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service

To: Steve Fancy who wrote (1219)	3/16/1998 7:51:00 PM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 22640

BRAZIL CONGRESS WEEK-Pension reform drags on Reuters, Monday, March 16, 1998 at 19:33 By William Schomberg BRASILIA, March 16 (Reuters) - The Brazilian government faced a testing week in Congress as it attempted to speed up its long-awaited -- and fiscally crucial -- social security reform bill, legislative officials said Monday. The Chamber of Deputies approved the bill itself in a first full vote in January. But 28 proposed alterations to its text have yet to be dealt with. Of those amendments, two are considered a threat to the cost-cutting potential of the reform -- one which would block the introduction of minimum retirement ages, and another which seeks to keep parity between civil service salaries and pensions. All the amendments must be voted before the lower house can hold a second full ballot on the bill. A further but smaller round of amendments would then have to be voted before the reform finally clears Congress, three years after being submitted. In a bid to speed up the reform's progress, Chamber of Deputies president Michel Temer took the unusual step of calling voting sessions from Tuesday morning through Thursday afternoon. Normally, lawmakers only show up in the capital Tuesday around midday and most are flying back to their home states within 48 hours. Temer told reporters, however, that the voting on the amendments might drag into next week. The government needs three-fifths majorities to kill the proposed changes to the bill and whips were reported to be carefully calculating support to avoid an upset. Officials have said they expect the social security reform bill to clear Congress around mid-April. The bill would put a check on a widening deficit in Brazil's public social security system which officials say is set to pass $5.0 billion this year. The government's other important fiscal reform, of the civil service, was approved by the Senate in final vote last week. But both reforms will require complementary legislation before they can be fully implemented. The other major event of this week in Congress was the hotly awaited reappearance of lawmaker Sergio Naya, a construction mogul whose luxury apartment block in Rio de Janeiro collapsed in February killing eight people. Naya was due to testify in a committee mulling his expulsion from Congress, a move which would strip him of parliamentary immunity and allow prosecutors to put him in court. National outrage over the Naya case has prompted lawmakers to begin considering a bill which would reduce the scope of parliamentary immunity. This week may also see a committee-level vote on a bill which would make it easier to approve constitutional reforms of the tax and party political systems in a special year-long session of Congress starting January 1999. Another bill facing a possible panel vote in the Chamber of Deputies would allow foreign companies into Brazil's currently protected health insurance market. william.schomberg@reuters.com)) Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service