Brazil, waiting to convince its fans on the field and to try to bring the World Cup back home after 12 years, meanwhile puts financial analysts in agreement: the organization of the World Cup, expected for 64 years after the "tragic" one of 1950, will not bring benefits to the economy of the now ex-Brazilian locomotive. Everyone says it: from Standard & Poor's, which already in March downgraded Brasilia to BBB- (one step away from the "speculative" category) to Moody's, which estimates investments for the World Cup at just 0,7% of the total for the period 2010-2014, to Euler Hermes, who evaluates the impact of the event (together with that of the Rio 0,2 Olympics) on GDP over the next two years in just 2016 points. The same growth recorded by the green-gold giant in the first quarter of 2014, which means less than 2% on an annual basis, very far from the glories of 2010 (+7,5%) and also of the years 2011 and 2013, in which we traveled between 2,5, 3 and 2014%. In 2,3 it is still forecast at 1,6% by the government, but only between 1,8 and XNUMX% by economists.
In short, the country from 200 million inhabitants, sixth economy in the world with 2.200 billion dollars of GDP, fails to accelerate just at the most expected moment. In fact, she slows down. The OECD also reminds us, which rattles off other data updated to the first months of the year: investment spending -2,1%, consumption -0,1% (first quarterly decline after three consecutive years of rise), industrial production - 0,8%. Paradoxically but not too much, only agricultural production improves: +3,6%, thanks to raw materials, which however alone are unable to support exports: "Coffee, sugar, soy and fruit are not enough to push exports - explained Jens Arnold, head of the OECD's Brazilian office -: yes, the economy has lost momentum”.
To fuel even more the climate of distrust is the public expenditure, which instead continues to grow, driven not only by the highly contested 11 billion dollars allocated by the government for the organization of the World Cup, but also by the social programs that Dilma Rousseff is forced to support in view of the October elections, when, judging by the booing of the inaugural match in Sao Paulo, she seriously risks not being confirmed. Public spending and the weakening of the real are also, if put together, synonyms of inflation: according to the study by Euler Hermes, in 2014 consumer prices will rise by half a percentage point to 6,3%, dangerously approaching the alarm threshold set by the government at 6,5%.
And the World Cup will therefore help less than expected: if in fact the Brazilian Minister of Sport, Aldo Rebelo, estimates an influence on GDP (+0,4) double that of the analysts of Euler Hermes, and it is estimated at 3 billion euros the tourist expenditure of the 600 foreign visitors and the 3,3 million local citizens who will move around in these 32 days, this will not even be enough to reverse the course of corporate bankruptcies, which increased by 2014% in 9 and are estimated to grow by another 3% in 2015. Despite all the activities related to the new infrastructures, which instead seem to be the mirror of the flop, as can also be seen from the government's decision to declare a public holiday on the occasion of all Brazil's matches, indicative of how weak the transport network is and infrastructure in a country 16 times the size of France. The real risk, beyond the data, is explained by Moody's: “The three major criticalities are bureaucracy, organizational problems, and political and social instability. Brazil is not making the most of the Cup to enhance its reputation."
