First picture: Petrobras' headquarters (left) facing BNDES' headquarters (right) at sunset
Second picture: Petrobras' headquarters from the BNDES garden with a Brazilian map bronze sculpture in the foreground
These photos were taking with an early mobile phone, either a SonyEricsson W800i or a HTC Desire (I think the former, as it had a Carl Zeiss lens).
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As an economist, my first "real" job was at the investors relations department of the Brazilian state-controlled (publicly traded) integrated oil and gas company Petrobras (which in recent years - after I left - was involved in corruption scandals...). Founded in 1953, Petrobras caught up fast in the 1970s with the deep sea oil exploration, so much so that by the 1990s/2000s it was world leader in these technologies, receiving two Distinguished Achievement Awards (1992 and 2001) of the prestigious Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), which is held annually in Houston (Texas, USA). Later in the fist decade of the 21st century, Petrobras was the first company in the world to discover and explore ultra-deep sea reserves located beyond the salt layer ("pre-salt") at the bottom of the ocean - it was the biggest oil reserve discovery of the century back then. For supplying the fuel for the Brazilian economy, for employing a huge workforce, for developing and exporting technology, Petrobras is key to the Brazilian development trajectory. Because it is state-controlled, it suffers criticism for the political decisions (and often, cronyism), and some think it should be privatized. Yet, the majority of its equity is in the hands of foreign investors, and by trading at NYSE, it abides to stringent governance regulations.
BNDES is the Brazilian development bank, which provides subsidized debt for infrastructure, industry and innovation, and makes equity investments in Brazilian companies. Development banks are not something exclusive of developing countries: Germany has one KfW, capitalized with the Marshall funds after WWII), Japan has one (DBJ), Europe has one (EIB), and even the United States has one (EXIM). Development banks are increasingly important to fund technological and infrastructure projects that address socio-environmental issues like global warming and demographic change.
