Knock 'em down, build 'em up

摘要

In 2014 Brazilian builders had a bumper year. Stadiums had to be ready in a dozen cities for the football World Cup in June, airports spruced up to welcome foreign visitors, and roads built to whisk them to venues. In Rio de Janeiro work was beginning in earnest on preparations for the Olympic Games it will host in 2016. President Dilma Rousseff was seeking re-election, and boosted the federal government's infrastructure spending in the run-up to October's tightly contested poll. Construction firms' revenues had already been rising by 11% a year, in real terms, for the past ten years.