Important new figures on investments for the 2014 World Cup and Rio 2016 Olympics have been revealed by professional services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers at an event in Rio earlier this week.
According to the firm, up to US$34 billion in private funds will be invested in Rio de Janeiro alone for the two events. To provide some scale, this would be over three times more than for the Olympics of Barcelona (US$8b) and Sydney (US$9.7b) respectively, a staggering increase even considering the World Cup´s added influence in Rio.
Hazem Galal, chief of PwC´s cities and local government network, pointed out that the massive number if mainly due to the lack of investment in infrastructure in Rio and wider Brazil over the last few decades.
Another key number revealed by the firm was the expected generation of more than 90,000 jobs in Rio, 35,400 of these permanent.