01 Feb 11. Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/0763a6/brazil_defence_and) announced the addition of the “Brazil Defence and Security Report Q1 2011” report to their offering. The Brazil Defence and Security Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, defence and security associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on Brazil’s defence and security industry. Security issues for Brazil continue to be dominated by three themes. The first is the governments ambition for the country to have an enlarged geostrategic role in Latin America, as befitting Brazil’s status as an emerging power. The second is the enlarged ability of the government to budget for defence. As it has the largest armed forces in South America, Brazil remains by far the largest spender on defence in the region, with a total budget of over US$27bn in 2009, a 16% y-o-y increase. There was a near doubling in the procurement budget by the Brazilian government to US$5.6bn over the three years to 2009. The third issue remains law and order in and around the major cities or the lack of it. The second round of Brazil’s general elections takes place on October 31 2010. Dilma Rousseff, of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), appears to be the favourite candidate. Her major challenger is Jos Serra (of the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, PSDB). Dilma Rousseff’s lead in the opinion polls suggests that President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva’s efforts to ensure that his appointed successor replaces him in office are starting to bear fruit. The emergence of Brazil as a regional economic heavyweight has enabled the Lula government to pull millions of households out of poverty since taking office in 2003, and helped to steer the economy out of recession in 2009. Whatever the outcome of the election, future administrations will suffer from higher voter expectations and comparison with Lula. Indeed, the growing need for reforms and the necessity of tackling many unaddressed policy issues could lead to a significant polarisation of the electorate. Addressing a widening fiscal shortfall will be essential in order to meet the security and infrastructural challenges ahead of the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016. Although we believe that both candidates will face similar challenges, and will ultimately have to address Brazil’s persisting and pressing economic structural issues, in neither case do we expect a sudden shift in policy. While Serra may prove to be more fiscally conservative, we do not envision a sharp unwinding of existing public spending commitments. By the same token, we do not expect a large build-up of public expenditure to a greater extent than already seen in recent years. We believe that Brazil’s growing financial market integration will ultimately ensure a moderate middle way for Brazilian politics. (Source: Yahoo!/BUSINESS WIRE)

28 Jan 11. Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/0a653d/france_defence_and) has announced the addition of the “France Defence and Security Report Q1 2011” report to their offering.
“France Defence and Security Report Q1 2011”Business Monitor International’s France Defence and Security Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, defence and security associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on France’s defence and security industry. France, like many European countries, has been scaling back defence spending as part of a programme of fiscal tightening. In 2010, BMI estimates that France’s overall defence spending totalled EUR45.146, down 1.8% from EUR45.991 in 2009, as budgetary austerity measures took effect. Defence has taken a relatively bigger hit than many department, falling from 4.3% to 4.0% of overall public spending. In 2011, B