Brazil’s $2 Billion Sugar-Cane Revival Plan Fails: Commodities

Brazil’s 4 billion-real ($2.1 billion) drive to revive sugar-cane production has faltered as government bureaucracy and a curb on foreign loans choked credit needed to finance planting.

Cane refiners, who also grow the crop, couldn’t complete paperwork in time to qualify for loans from the state development bank known as BNDES before the main planting season ended last month, said Maurilio Biagi Filho, president of the ethanol producer Grupo Maubisa. In March, the government imposed a tax on overseas borrowing to stifle capital inflows that are boosting the currency.