RIO DE JANEIRO: British finance minister George Osborne unveiled plans Monday to ramp up exports to Latin America, as he embarked on a visit to World Cup and Olympic hosts Brazil.
Despite the Latin American giant of some 200 million being the world's seventh-largest economy, Brazil was the destination of just one percent of British exports last year -- leaving Britain trailing behind EU neighbors Germany, France and Italy.
"For decades, we have not been exporting enough -- not just to Brazil, but to all the fastest growing markets in the world, so I am confronting that historic weakness head-on," Osborne told business leaders.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer said Britain aims to ensure a lasting infrastructure investment legacy from the partnership Britain struck with Brazil when it handed on the Olympic torch from London to Rio in 2012.
British sources said one major deal coming to fruition is a commitment by Rolls Royce to build a 22-million-pound ($36 million; 26.5 million euros) marine facility in Rio.
Osborne meanwhile was to meet Tuesday with his Brazilian counterpart Guido Mantega and Central Bank of Brazil governor, Alexandre Tombini and also visit the Sao Paulo stock exchange.
The British finance minister said he was doubling government export lending and cutting the interest rates on that lending by a third.
"I am clear: Britain will no longer have some of the least competitive export finance in Europe. We are going to have the most competitive export finance in Europe," Osborne predicted, saying his measures would mean "billions of extra lending" for British exporters and also cheaper lending.
With Brazil in the global sporting spotlight, British firms last year netted a billion pounds ($1.6 billion; 1.2 billion euros) worth of contracts in Brazil.
But Osborne said London is now offering support for a further 1.5 billion pounds of deals despite weak consumer demand.
Earlier Monday, a shirt-sleeved Osborne took time out to salute old schoolfriend Luke Dowdney, heading a Rio sports project for some 2,000 children in a slum which troops took over last week.
Dowdney, a former amateur boxer, set up 14 years ago the Brazilian unit of Fight for Peace (FFP), an international non-profit group of organizations combining boxing and martial arts with education in crime-hit areas.
London also hosts the program.
A week ago, thousands of soldiers moved into the Mare complex, home to some 130,00 people but notorious as the turf of rival drugs gangs, to shore up security before the World Cup's June 12 start.
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