Source: Época Negócios - São Paulo / SP - 21/10/2010

The Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) today released the results of the October International Monitor of Perception of Brazil (MPI-BR) survey. The results show that, this month, international agents with operations or representation in the country improved their perception regarding the future of the Brazilian economy and the social scenario, when compared to the results of July, when the first official edition of the survey was released.

On the other hand, in these three months, the perception of the consulted agents in relation to the political-institutional scenario worsened, with worsening mainly of the perception regarding the country's legal security situation. The collection of information was carried out by Ipea in the period between 5 and 20 of October.

In the elaboration of the research, about 170 entities were consulted, including representatives of governments (embassies and consulates), chambers of commerce, companies with foreign control and multilateral organizations, with guaranteed confidentiality given by Ipea. In the survey released today, the score for questions on economics reached 27 points, against 24 points in July. Society questions scored 15 points, compared to seven points in the previous survey. The answers to questions about politics, government and institutions registered 20 points in the MPI-BR released today, compared to 30 points in the previous study.

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In this new edition of the survey, the responses of the public consulted regarding the performance of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the next 12 months reached 59 points (the same score as the previous survey). This is a prospect that is classified as moderately optimistic. The stake of the consulted agents is that the GDP will grow between 3,6% and 6% in the next 12 months. In contrast, an average of zero points (13 points in the previous survey) was obtained for responses involving perspectives on the evolution of the quality of transport infrastructure in the last 12 months.

In the institutional scenario, the worst result was found in the question about the situation of legal security in Brazil, with 14 negative points in the responses given by international agents (there were four negative points in the previous survey). In other words, in the area of ​​legal security, the assessment of international agents within the range considered to be moderately pessimistic or unfavorable worsened. Conversely, within the set of social questions, the average number of responses regarding the outlook for the next 43 months on the population living in conditions of poverty reached 32 points (front 12 in the previous survey).

Scale

The scale developed by Ipea ranges from 100 negative points, for very pessimistic or very unfavorable responses, to 100 positive points, for very optimistic or favorable responses. Responses that are in the range between 20 and 60 points on the scale developed by Ipea are classified as “moderately optimistic or favorable”. Results between zero and 20 points mean merely “neutral” responses. Because the society indicators scored 15 points, denoting the cautious understanding that international entities have regarding the future in this sector.

The survey is conducted every three months, involving a questionnaire with 15 objective questions. There are six questions about economics, six questions about politics, government and institutions and three questions about society. Each answer receives an individual score. Thus, for each of the 15 questions in the questionnaire, a partial calculation is performed, using the average of the points. Finally, the questions are counted for each of the three main thematic indexes, involving the economic, political-institutional and social dimensions, allowing the achievement of the final scores.

In this latest survey, Ipea informs that MPI-BR is a qualitative survey that aims to translate the evaluation of international entities that operate or have representation in Brazil on the country's economic, social, political and institutional scenario. The study released today was the second official edition of MPI-BR. The first edition was presented in July, although Ipea conducted a pilot survey in January.