Weekly Report - 21 May 2015 (WR-15-20)

Petrobras, the troubled Brazilian state oil firm, was one of the big winners this week following the visit of Chinese premier Li Keqiang. While other former investors are suing Petrobras over its management’s cover-up of the massive corruption scandal at the firm, China is betting that the long-term future of the company is rosy. Various Chinese financial institutions, including the Export-Import Bank of China (Cexim) and the China State Development Bank, are investing up to US$10bn in Petrobras. Even more significant is the Chinese investment in Brazilian infrastructure which, if it ever gets off the ground, has the potential to make a huge difference to the connectivity of Latin America’s infrastructure.