Brazil would commit political suicide by joining the OECD, says ex-finance minister Rubens Ricupero
São Paulo: June 11, 2009: The former Brazilian finance minister and ex-chairman of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Rubens Ricupero, says that Brazil´s new standing on the world stage should not tempt it to join the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Mr. Ricupero´s comments appear in an interview on the Brazil Political and Business Comment site in which he also discusses the G20 which he says is “here to stay” and how Brazil should respond to rising trade protectionism. Here is an excerpt:” ...OECD membership would be the equivalent of political suicide. Most of the time, on all those issues, the positions assumed by Brazil are not only different from but often opposed to those of OECD member countries. Mexico opted to join the OECD in the euphoria following the celebration of the Free Trade Agreement with the USA and Canada (NAFTA); today, the country is quite isolated and unremarkable in multilateral diplomacy forums.”
You can also read Oil is Not Brazil´s Only Offshore Asset by John Fitzpatrick who says President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva could do more to eradicate poverty by exploiting the country´s rich sea resources than by spending billions in opening up the pre-salt oil reserves. Here is an excerpt:” Brazil´s fishing industry is underdeveloped and inefficient. The government hands out licenses to fleets from other countries which reap the maritime harvests... Lula himself described Brazil´s failure to exploit its fishing resources as a matter for “shame” earlier this year [and] compared Brazil´s unimpressive annual catch of around one million tons with that of Peru which catches nine times as much even though it is a much smaller country.”
Update: Comments and articles by John Fitzpatrick, the founder of Brazil Business and Political Comment, have recently appeared on the BBC World Service Business Daily program, the Evening Edition of Radio 93FM of Jamaica, the Russian Journal of Moscow, On Line Opinion of Australia, Latin Business Chronicle of Miami and the Global Post.
