RIO DE JANEIRO, July 12 (Reuters) – Rio de Janeiro can expect about 53.2 billion reais ($34 billion) in private investments linked to the World Cup and Olympic Games, outstripping the funding attracted by other recent host cities, a study showed on Tuesday.

The report by professional services firm PwC said the biggest investments and job creation would come in infrastructure and tourism as the Brazilian beach-side city prepares to host the two massive sports events in 2014 and 2016 respectively.

By comparison, Barcelona drew investments of about $8 billion for its 1992 Olympic Games and Sydney attracted $9.7 billion in 2000, the study said.

“It’s going to be bigger than in other cities,” Hazem Galal, global leader for cities and local government with PwC, said after a panel debate on Olympic investment opportunities in Rio on Tuesday.

“The lack of infrastructure investment in the past in Brazil and Rio has left a need for investment and raises the chance to redefine some sectors such as tourism.”

Despite Brazil’s famous beaches and warm weather, only about 5 million foreign tourists visit the vast country each year, compared with 8 million who visit tiny Dubai, he said. The double-header of sports events is expected to help nearly double annual foreign visitors to Rio — which is already suffering from a shortage of hotel capacity — to 4 million by 2016, the study predicted.

Overall, the events should generate more than 90,000 jobs in Rio, including 35,400 permanent positions, it said.

RIO DE JANEIRO/LIMA (Reuters) – It was a political pilgrimage that surprised no one.

Within days of winning Peru’s presidential election, Ollanta Humala flew to Brazil to learn more about its success over the past decade and meet former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who inspired Humala’s journey from the radical left toward the political center.

Humala’s election victory was the latest sign that Lula’s mix of market-friendly policies and social programs for the poor, credited with turning Brazil into an economic powerhouse, is going international. Call it the Brasilia Consensus, or “Lulismo.”

The former union boss established an enviable electoral formula by making deep inroads into poverty in his eight years in power while pleasing Wall St. bankers and elevating Brazil into the league of emerging market powers like China and India.

Leftist Mauricio Funes won El Salvador’s presidency in 2009 at the head of a party of former Marxist guerrillas after convincing enough middle-class voters that he was inspired by Lula rather than Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez.

One of Lula’s leading election marketers even helped him craft his campaign, and other former advisers to Lula’s party helped Humala craft his campaign message in Peru.

In South America, several leaders have opted to take the Lula path — most notably Jose “Pepe” Mujica, a former guerrilla who was elected president of Uruguay in 2009.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Moody’s Investors Service upgraded Brazil’s sovereign credit rating on Monday, giving a vote of confidence to the government’s efforts to prevent Latin America’s largest economy from overheating.

Moody’s lifted Brazil a notch further into investment grade status to “Baa2″ and retained its positive outlook, underlining the resilience of its economy compared to some European countries that are suffering debt crises and downgrades.

The agency said it awarded the upgrade because Brazil’s policies had successfully dampened overheating pressures that threatened to derail the economy after torrid growth of 7.5 percent last year. It also said the South American nation was less vulnerable to credit risks than many others because of its

solid banking system.

The authorities were acting to defuse an overheated economy through a combination of fiscal and monetary measures, Moody’s said.

But with the pressure on politicians to spend, some analysts questioned Moody’s decision despite promises by President Dilma Rousseff to curtail spending.

Kathryn Rooney Vera, senior emerging markets strategist at Bulltick Capital Markets, said Moody’s move was a “bit premature,” given Rousseff’s relatively timid cuts to spending.

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 20 (Reuters) – Ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service upgraded Brazil’s sovereign credit rating on Monday, giving a vote of confidence in the government’s efforts to prevent Latin America’s largest economy from overheating.

Moody’s lifted Brazil a notch further into investment grade status to “Baa2″ and retained its positive outlook. The action underlined the resilience of Brazil’s economy when some crisis-hit countries in Europe are suffering downgrades.

Brazilian stocks and the currency gained slightly after Moody’s announcement, which followed a one-notch upgrade to BBB by ratings firm Fitch in April. The Standard and Poor’s agency in May raised its outlook to positive on its “BBB-” rating, the lowest rung of its investment grade ratings.

“Through a combination of fiscal and monetary measures, the authorities are in the process of defusing conditions that have caused overheating in the economy,” Moody’s said in a statement.

Even if a “bubble-like event” were to occur, it said, “its impact on the government’s balance sheet is not likely to be substantial.”

Brazil’s central bank has raised interest rates four times this year and taken other steps to curb strong credit growth in Brazil, whose economy grew at a torrid 7.5 percent pace last year.

President Dilma Rousseff announced budget cuts of more than $30 billion to counter a surge in public spending last year that helped stoke inflation to a 6.55 percent annual rate.