Falling prices of iron ore and other commodities are not worrying Brazilian development bank BNDES president Luciano Coutinho.
During a press conference Thursday in Rio, Coutinho said prices will bounce back because he believes Asia's voracious consumption of minerals will remain high.
"Commodity prices have a level of sustainability," said Coutinho. "This ongoing global financial crisis could force prices to fall, but prices will rebound because of the growth of developing economies."
Coutinho expects Asian economies, especially China's, to be in a condition to maintain the level of commodity prices despite an expected decrease in annual economic growth to 9.5% from 12%.
"China will continue to be the top buyer of Brazilian commodities," said the BNDES president. "This will allow prices to be sustained at levels that create export opportunities for both agricultural and products in the mining and metals chain."
As a main financier of Brazilian industry, BNDES funded the metallurgical industry with 1.87bn reais (US$997mn) in January-August 2008, the equivalent to 4% of all industrial disbursements.
Also through August, the bank approved loans of 2.62bn reais for the metallurgical sector, while approvals totaled 3.49bn reais in the last 12 months.
The mining sector, which for BNDES includes petroleum extraction, received 1.79bn reais in the first eight months and was approved for a total 10.6bn reais in the same period.
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