Britain’s Tony Blair to Begin Brazil Visit

British Prime Minister Tony Blair today begins a three-day visit to Brazil that aims to lift the visibility of Brazil in the eyes of the British business community.

It will be the first bilateral visit ever by a British prime minister to South America’s largest economy.

British companies have been conspicuously absent from the Brazilian investment scene in the last five years while other European countries have quickly erected empires in the world’s ninth-largest economy.

“Over the last four to five years, it is absolutely true that there has been relatively less new British investment than there has been investment from some of our major competitors in Western Europe,” said Roger Bone, Britain’s ambassador to Brazil. He puts total accumulated British investment in Brazil at $20 billion.

“It is an economic heavyweight. We need to know more about it; it needs to be understood better,” Bone said.

On the export side, Britain also has fallen short in selling to the economy of 170 million people. Despite controlling 5% of world trade, it accounted for 2.3% of Brazil’s imports in 2000, making it the 10th-largest supplier to the country.

Brazil chalked up a surplus of $265 million with Britain last year, with heavy concentration in sales of aircraft, shoes, wood and paper pulp, beef and soy. Britain’s $1.2-billion in exports to Brazil ranged from pharmaceuticals to jet engines to whiskey.

Blair has invited along 13 executives from top British companies, including Ralph Robins, chairman of engine maker Rolls-Royce, and banker Evelyn de Rothschild, chairman of NM Rothschild.