Brazil flexes its muscles

Economists are undecided as to whether the success of developing countries is predicated upon that of developed economies; most measures show that standalone growth in the former – which include Brazil and China – greatly exceeds that of the latter.

Politics plays an important role in Brazil, which – like China – has great shipbuilding ambitions. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva touched on the strategic importance of his country's nascent shipyard industry in a recent interview for the UK's Financial Times. "We want to develop a strong oil industry and a strong shipbuilding industry together. We want to build our own drilling rigs, our own offshore platforms and our own ships," he stated.

Lula added: "We are endeavouring to make oil companies around the world develop partnerships with us in building shipyards with drydocks so that we can build things in Brazil."

A huge ordering programme tied to energy giant Petrobras – which includes tankers and offshore service craft and, in the future, drilling rigs currently being built in South Korean shipyards – is set to revitalise Brazil's shipbuilding industry. In anticipation of an infrastructure boom in the country, international financial and legal providers are therefore beefing up their presence.