just hard work
Holland
in Brief
Staff communication magazine for the Rab
Chile office to open Brazil special - No
Vision 1994
Looking ahead
Croatian donation
Investing in the future
Rabobank Academy launch
ISSUE 25/24 JANUARY 1994
Following approval from the
board of management, the in
ternational division is to open
a new office in the Chilean cap-
ital of Santiago. The opening is
slated for April this year, and
the general manager designate
is Ronald Blok, formerly senior
area manager of the Latin
America desk in Utrecht.
Most banks refrain from stick-
ing their necks out when it
comes to long-term forecasts.
Not Rabobank. The recent pre-
sentation of Vision 94, the
latest in an unparalleled an-
nual series of economie and
financial prognoses attracted
over 350 professionals from
the financial sector in the
Netherlands. An English ver
sion, entitled Rabobank Fore-
cast 1994, is also available and
was presented at the bank's of
fice in Antwerp on January 18.
Rabobank Australia's new
offices will be opened offi-
cially on February 10 by
Henk Visser, a member of
the Executive Board.
This year's international CAM
conference takes place in the
Netherlands on January 28.
An 'Americas' regional trade
conference is hosted by the
Curacao office on February 2
to 4.
The Port of Rotterdam and
Rabobank co-host an interna
tional conference on both the
fresh and processed fruit sec
tors in Rotterdam on March 9
and 10 - a full report will
appear in our April issue.
Board chairman Herman
Wijffels will officially open
Curacao's new building in
May. As a run up to the event,
the office will be the focus of a
profile in the next edition of
Raboband International.
Megainflation, political turmoil, wide-spread, soul-destroying
poverty, coffee and carnival - mention Brazil and that is the
image the largest country in South America usually evokes. But
with a forecast GDP growth for 1993 of between 4 and 6
percent, there appears to be a lot more to Brazil than meets the
eye. And if the situation is so unstable and fraught with risk,
why is an eminently cautious institution like Rabobank there,
and why is it making money hand over fist for the international
division? Raboband International went to find out.
The popular song There's an
awful lot of coffee in Brazil is quite
possibly the only information
many people have on the export
output of the enormous country
that sprawls over a lot of South
America. Somehow, soya beans,
orange juice, paper and pulp and
shoes - to name but a few other
major products - don't seem to
have the same kind of appeal.
But with 8.5 million square kilo-
metres of land, ranging from vir-
gin and impenetrable rain forest
to drought-striken areas in the
north and super-fertile ground
in the south, Brazil is not only
the largest country in Latin Ame
rica, it is also one of the world's
most physically and economical-
ly variegated single nations.
In a sense, Brazil is something of
an enigma. To some developed
nations it is a Third World
country and a prime candidate
for aid, to others it is well into
Second World status. In spite of
its size, potential and proven
fertility - in terms of both agri-
culture and industry - it is home
to a vast number of people who
live on or below the poverty line.
Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo's
favelasor slum townships, are
notorious worldwide.
In sharp contrast, Brazil is also
noted for its highly educated,
sophisticated professional and
middle classes, and for the great
wealth that has been and still is
being accumulated by a relative-
ly small section of the popula-
tion. Essentially, as anyone who
knows the country will teil you,
there are two Brazils, one ex-
ceedingly rich and prosperous,
the other desparately poor, and
these live literally side by side.
The causes of this immense imbal-
ance are too complex to go into
continued on page 2
Luxury greetings cards were not
top of member-bank Roer-
mond's Christmas list for 1993.
In fact, they weren't on it at all.
Instead, the bank's clients re-
ceived a flyer wishing them a
prosperous 1994 and explaining
that the money that would
normally have been spent on ex-
pensive cards had been used to
buy playground equipment for
an orphanage in Croatia.
For the fourth successive year,
the national 'Bourse competi-
tion' will be sponsored by Rabo
bank. The competition is open
to all corners who for 10 weeks
'play' the markets - equity, op-
tions, bonds, futures and war
rants - with a notional capital of
NLG 300,000. Prizes for best per
formance are awarded in all five
categories and the winners will
be announced in May.
Plans to develop the bank's own
centre of training excellence have
begun to take on real form. The
Rabobank Academy, which aims
to provide inhouse training
courses by both internal and
external experts and to award
generally recognized certificates
and diplomas, was launched on
January 1.
The first course takes top ma
nagers from the bank's Policy
Committee back to school and,
as 'pupil' Herman Wijffels says,
proves 'that no one is too senior
to learn.'
