Brazilian digital insurance company Pier is now issuing its own policies following a $14.5 million Series A round of funding.
The company started with insurance for auto and smartphones and that provides coverage without a grace period or deductible costs and that can be contracted entirely online, Igor Mascarenhas, co-founder and CEO, told Crunchbase News.
By Christine Hall via CrunchBase
Economy Minister Paulo Guedes lauded the economic boost from Brazil’s policy mix of low interest rates and a weak exchange rate, forecasting that exports to China will reach $100 billion a year within a decade.
In two online live events, Guedes also reiterated his view that the economy is undergoing a “V-shaped” recovery and creating jobs, and said the government’s economic reform program will accelerate once this month’s local elections are done.
By Jamie McGeever and Marcela Ayres via Hellenic Shipping News
Brazil’s economy probably rebounded at a record quarterly pace in July-September and was on track for a better start to 2021 than previously thought, as businesses and households recovered from the first surge in COVID-19 cases.
But on a year-ago basis, gross domestic product (GDP) in Latin America’s No. 1 economy is still expected to shrink, as well as in the current quarter and modestly in the first three months of 2021, marking five straight quarters of contraction.
Via Merco Press
November 24 (Renewables Now) – Canadian Solar Inc (NASDAQ:CSIQ) has recently signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) covering 862 MWp of new solar capacity in Brazil.
The first contract was sealed with Brazilian investment bank and energy trader Banco BTG Pactual SA (B3:BPAC11). Under its terms, Canadian Solar will supply electricity from a 170-MWp cluster of projects located in Minas Gerais state for a 12-year period.
By Lucas Morais via Renewables Now
In the tropical forest surrounding Alter do Chão, a Brazilian town located on a languid stretch of the Amazon River and home to what is considered one of the most beautiful freshwater beaches in the world, monkeys, macaws, agoutis and armadillos co-habit in relative harmony.
About 33 kilometers west of the city of Santarém in Pará state, life’s slow pace in the village has long been a draw for weekend trippers and foreign tourists alike. But Alter do Chão and its surroundings, increasingly threatened by illegal loggers and poachers, is also a base for what may be one of the most innovative nonprofit organizations fighting animal trafficking in Brazil.
By Peter Yeung via Mongabay
Brazil’s average daily flights fell from the original 2,500 to about 200 during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown period. In the months with the highest surge of the pandemic, Brazilian airlines reduced their operations by 99%.
But now, Brazil’s civil aviation sector appears to have bounced back from the strong impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in December expects to be operating at 80% of the capacity it registered in the same month last year, Ronei Glanzmann, head of the National Civil Aviation Secretariat, said at a forum sponsored by the Ministry of Infrastructure.
Via Merco Press
Brazil’s health ministry said on Sunday it will sign non-binding letters of intent to purchase coronavirus vaccines from four companies and Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, adding that any purchase will depend on the approval of the nation’s regulators.
According to the ministry, officials met last week with representatives of Pfizer Inc, India’s Bharat Biotech, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Moderna Inc and Janssen, a unit of Johnson & Johnson.
Via Merco Press
Shareholders of Brazilian software firm Linx have agreed to back an acquisition offer from NASDAQ-listed payments processor StoneCo.
The transaction is valued at 6.8 billion reais ($1.28 billion), making it one of the largest ever deals involving a Brazilian technology company. The approval of 63% of Linx’s shareholders for the takeover offer ends a bidding war that saw StoneCo competing with Brazilian ERP giant Totvs since August.
By Angelica Mari via ZD Net
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – The first 120,000 doses of CoronaVac, a COVID-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech SVA.O that is being tested in Brazil, arrived at São Paulo’s international airport on Thursday morning, the state government said.
The doses will be stored in an undisclosed warehouse as the state awaits approval for use in Brazil by the national health regulator known as Anvisa.
Via Reuters
Brasília – The BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have expressed their support of Brazil’s bid for a seat as a rotating member of the United Nations Security Council in 2022 and 2023. The move was made public in the minutes of the 12th BRICS Summit Meeting (pictured above), held online on Tuesday (18).
The meeting minutes also espouse international cooperation to address the Covid-19 pandemic and equitable distribution of a safe, effective vaccine. The BRICS also call for a reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to enable the defense of developing countries, prevent protectionism by wealthy nations, and to work for a “more resilient” global supply chain.
Via Brazil-Arab News Agency
Pfizer Inc said on Wednesday it had offered to provide Brazil with millions of doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in the first half of 2021, amid evidence the coronavirus is spreading more rapidly in South America’s largest country.
“Pfizer made a proposal to the Brazilian government, in line with deals we closed in other countries – including in Latin America, that would permit the vaccination of millions of Brazilians in the first half, subject to regulatory approval,” the company said in a statement.
Via Merco Press
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s Sao Paulo state is set to begin importing the first of 46 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine against COVID-19 this week, while the federal government takes a more cautious approach with a vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc.
Federal health officials met with Pfizer representatives on Tuesday as Brazil seeks to secure vaccine supplies. The Health Ministry said in a statement that it would buy the Pfizer vaccine, currently in Phase 3 trials, if it was proven safe and was registered with health authority Anvisa.
By Ricardo Brito and Anthony Boadle via Reuters
Although she’s not a household name in the United States, billionaire Luiza Trajano, the richest woman in Brazil, might very well become one soon if her radical new model to confront structural racism takes hold.
Brazil’s economic policy response to the pandemic was unusually aggressive by emerging market standards. The monetary easing was perhaps the most forceful in EM when you consider the current level of the policy rate of 2%, relative to the ten-year historical average of 10%. The persistent FX sell-off has been the primary side-effect of that easing, which is, arguably a minor concern in the current low-inflation environment.
Much more consequential has been the fiscal stimulus enacted, especially the household income transfers to help offset wage income lost to Covid-19 movement restrictions.
By Gustavo Rangel via Think.ING
WhatsApp is getting another crack at grabbing a slice of Brazil’s fast-growing payments market.
Facebook’s messaging service will soon get a green light to start providing peer-to-peer (P2P) payment services in Brazil, Roberto Campos Neto, head of the country’s central bank, said at a news conference Monday (Nov. 16), Reuters reported.
Campos Neto also noted Brazil’s central bank has talked to other Big Tech firms like Google about their interest in offering instant payments services in the country, Reuters reported.
Via Pymnts
Sharply weaker oil prices, the COVID-19 pandemic, and heightened geopolitical uncertainty have done little to blunt Brazil’s epic offshore oil boom. By September 2020 Brazil had soared to be the third-largest supplier of crude oil to China, the world’s second-largest economy. The scale of Brazil’s deep-water offshore oil boom is underscored by the pre-salt Tupi oilfield which for the third quarter of 2020 reached the impressive milestone of having pumped two billion barrels of accumulated oil production in the decade since commercial oil production began. A key reason for this is the rapidly growing popularity of the sweet medium crude oil grades produced from Brazil’s pre-salt oil fields, notably Tupi the world’s largest deep-water oilfield, and the Buzios field.
By Matthew Smith via Oilprice.com
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Uber Technologies Inc started on Monday to take instant payments in Brazil in partnership with payments startup Ebanx, both companies said.
More than 60 million people had already signed up to the newly launched instant payments platform, so-called Pix, before its full operation started this Monday. It allows consumers and companies to make money transfers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without requiring debit or credit cards.
Via Reuters
This week, we saw Amazon’s announcement of the opening of three more logistics centers in Brazil – in three different states – which are expected to meet demand for Prime deliveries from the US retailer’s subscription service. Now, its Argentinian competitor in Brazil, Mercado Livre, has followed the same path and has announced that it will open five more distribution warehouses in the country.
According to the company, the five new centers will start operating in early 2021 and will be spread across three Brazilian states: Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina and São Paulo.
By Re: Jerusalem
Among the ten best universities in Latin America, three are Brazilian public education institutions. The ranking released by the British consultancy QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) evaluated USP, Unicamp and UFRJ as the most prestigious in the country.
The survey, published annually, evaluated 410 educational institutions from 20 countries in the region. The ranking is led, as in the previous year, by the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
By Isabela Palhares via Folha de S. Paulo
November 12 (Renewables Now) – Neoenergia SA (BVMF:NEOE3) has started the construction of its 566.5-MW Oitis wind complex, the company announced on Tuesday.
By Lucas Morais via Renewables Now
São Paulo – Saudi Arabia’s poultry imports from Brazil were a highlight in October at 44,900 tons, up 22% year-on-year. The information was made public by the Brazilian Animal Protein Association (ABPA) this Wednesday (11).
Last month saw 319,700 tons of poultry shipped abroad from Brazil, down 9.4% year-on-year. Exports fetched USD 446.8 million, down 21.2%.
By Thais Souza via Brazil-Arab News Agency
(Bloomberg)—Amazon.com Inc. is opening three new distribution centers in Brazil, marking its biggest logistics push in Latin America’s largest market as competition intensifies amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The expansion, which comes two months after the U.S. ecommerce giant launched its largest distribution center yet in the country, adds 75,000 square-meters to Amazon’s logistics infrastructure. It also gives it more bandwidth, raising to 500 the number of cities with deliveries in less than 48 hours—just shy of 10% of municipalities in Brazil.
Via Digital Commerce 360
São Paulo – Brazilian footwear exports saw a slight month-on month growth in October, following a trend of gradual rebound from the economic impact of the pandemic. According to the Brazilian Footwear Industry Association (Abicalçados), October saw 10.43 million pairs of shoes shipped from Brazil, up. 28.6% month on month; revenue came out to USD 55.4 million, up 4.8%.
Year on year, though, volume was down 6.1%, and revenue 36.8%. Year to date through October, exports reached 74.9 million pairs of shoes, down 22.3%, for USD 545.35 million, down 33.6% from a year ago.
Via Brazil-Arab News Agency
BEIJING, Nov 7 (Reuters) – China’s soybean imports jumped 41% in October from a year ago, according to data from the General Administration of Customs released on Saturday, as delayed Brazilian cargoes cleared customs and U.S. soybean arrivals grew.
The world’s top soybean importer brought in 8.69 million tonnes of the oilseed in October, up from 6.18 million tonnes in the same month of the previous year, as crushers booked Brazilian beans earlier on good crush margins and as more U.S. beans started to flow in, the data showed.
By Hallie Gu and Kevin Yao via Successful Farming
Amazon said on Monday it had opened three more logistics centers in Brazil to take advantage of the boost the Covid-19 pandemic has given to e-commerce in South America’s largest economy.
The new units are already operating in the states of Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul and the capital city of Brasilia.
Via CNBC
Amazon today celebrated the first anniversary of its personal voice assistant, Alexa. And, to celebrate, the American giant announced the start of sales of the latest generations of its Echo and Echo Dot smart speakers, announced worldwide in September.
The main novelty of this generation, the design of the cases has been changed, abandoning the format of the disc for a round construction. There’s a significant improvement in sound here, powered by a three-inch woofer, two tweeters, and Dolby processing that delivers stereo sound with high highs, dynamic mids, and deep lows, according to Amazon. In the case of the Echo Dot and Echo Dot with clock, there is also the function that activates the repeat mode with a single press.
Via Re: Jerusalem
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced yesterday (4) the seizure of virtual currency worth around $24 million on behalf of the Brazilian government as part of an investigation into a large-scale fraud scheme.
According to the Brazilian authorities, more than US$ 200 million was obtained through the cryptocurrency fraud scheme, which is believed to have impacted “tens of thousands” of investors.
By Angelica Mari via Forbes
To further strengthen their ties, India and Brazil elevated their bilateral relations to a strategic partnership in 2006 and since then the relationship has witnessed an upward trend. President Jair Bolsonaro was the chief guest at the Republic Day this year. The largest economy in Latin America, Brazil offers a huge market for a wide range of Indian manufactured goods. Also, it is a country with a lot of natural resources and can help India in various sectors especially in agri-tech, bio-energy, pharmaceuticals, oil and defence and space.
Suresh K Reddy who has in September this year assumed charge as Ambassador of India to Brazil talks with Huma Siddiqui on a wide range of topics. Following are excerpts:
By Huma Siddiqui via Financial Express
During a ceremony held on Wednesday (4), the Minister of the Economy, Paulo Guedes, confirmed that Brazil will also have a digital currency. The project is already under study by the Central Bank (CB) and will be a direct consequence of the adoption of the PIX.
Guedes didn’t even mention the details of the project, but the idea of a digital currency has already been explored by several countries around the world. The most advanced example is Chinese, since the country’s government has already launched the digital yuan.
Via Re: Jerusalem
(Bloomberg) — Brazil’s industrial production rose for the fifth straight month in September, representing the longest streak of gains since 2012, as billions of dollars in fiscal stimulus spurs broad-based consumer demand.
Output rose 2.6% from August, above the median estimate for a 2.4% gain from economists in a Bloomberg survey. Industrial production increased 3.4% from a year ago, returning
By Mario Sergio Lima via Bloomberg Quint
A U.S. grain export terminal near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is loading about 38,000 tons of U.S. soybeans on a bulk cargo vessel for shipment to Brazil, according to Southport Agencies shipping lineup.
Brazil is the world’s top exporter of soybeans, so it almost never needs imports. This year, growers have sold huge volumes to top importer China, leaving little for domestic consumption. That has led to price rises for feed for animal farming and meatpacking operations in Brazil, and contributed to food inflation.
Via Merco Press
Over the last five years, Brazil has witnessed a startup boom.
The main startups hubs in the country have traditionally been São Paulo and Belo Horizonte, but now a new wave of cities are building their own thriving local startup ecosystems, including Recife with Porto Digital hub and Florianópolis with Acate. More recently, a “Black Silicon Valley” is beginning to take shape in Salvador da Bahia.
By Paulo Rogério Nunes and Tara Collier via Tech Crunch
Conductor, a Brazil-based card issuer and banking-as-a-service platform has raised $150 million in a funding round led by Viking Global Investors.
