Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is applying his strategy of promoting ties among Southern Hemisphere countries to the quest for Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics.

Lula has visited eight countries since April to court developing nations’ support for Rio, whose competition is Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid. Two Web sites that track the games show Rio in the lead, while U.K. bookmakers give better odds to Chicago. Both Lula, 63, and President Barack Obama will be in Copenhagen for the International Olympic Committee’s decision tomorrow.

“No other national leader is working the room so intensely as Lula,” said Ed Hula, an Olympics historian whose Atlanta- based Aroundtherings.com news service tracks the games. “He just wants it more.”

Selection of Rio would put the Olympics in South America for the first time. The games would inject $51.1 billion into the Brazilian economy through 2027, with job growth rippling through several industries, according to a study by a Sao Paulo business school.

Lula drove home his message last week in New York, where he was attending the opening meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

“Hosting the games shouldn’t be the exclusive privilege of rich nations,” the Brazilian leader said at a news conference. “For the other countries, it’s just another Olympics. For Brazil, it’s a chance to reaffirm our identity as a people and as a country.”

Rio is fighting perceptions of its violent crime rate and being stretched too thin by hosting the World Cup.

African Bloc

Lula is focusing on winning support from the 15 African members of the IOC, representing 13 nations. It’s the second- biggest contingent among the 106 members, after Europe. Africa, along with Latin America and the Caribbean, has been at the heart of Lula’s foreign policy since he took office in 2003.

Brazilian investment abroad has jumped to $20 billion a year, most of it in the developing world, according to a United Nations report. Sales of goods and service to developing nations generated 50 percent of all exports last year, up from 38 percent the year before Lula became president.

Lula has visited 19 countries in Africa and opened 15 embassies there. He was a guest of honor at the African Union summit in Libya in July and urged heads of state to have their IOC representatives vote for Brazil’s bid.

Helping Hand

Brazil also is reaching out with projects such as building a $23 million pharmaceutical plant in Mozambique to produce generic drugs for treating AIDS. In 2006, state-run agricultural research agency Embrapa opened its first foreign office in Ghana, to spread the soil-management techniques that have improved farming in Brazil.

“Politics plays an important role,” said Rob Livingstone, who runs Gamesbids.com, a Toronto-based Olympics Web site. “Some members will be swayed by emotion and the fact that such a charismatic leader as Lula wants to bring the games to a new part of the world.”

His geographic tactics may have little effect, according to Juan Antonio Saramanch Jr., who is one of Madrid’s bid leaders and whose father served as IOC president.

“My experience the last eight years is that there is no such thing as bloc voting,” Samaranch, 49, said in a June interview in Madrid. “Each IOC member makes up his voting decision on infinite number of unknown variables.”

Creating Jobs

Hosting the Olympics would add 120,000 jobs in Brazil annually through 2016, according to the study done by business administration school Fundacao Instituto de Administracao for the Ministry of Sports. The study considered public and private investments that would have a multiplying effect in industries such as construction, transportation, communications and real estate services.

“We understand the investments will start immediately if Rio wins,” said Sergio Murashima, 44, the professor who coordinated the FIA study. “Especially in civil construction, the mobilization would start very soon.”

The Brazilian government will recoup 97 percent of its investment by collecting more tax revenue through 2027, according to the study.

Whichever city wins, it is likely to get a stock-market boost through next week, according to Christian Dick, an economist at Germany’s ZEW institute.

“Looking at the announcements from 1988 to 2014, we found that, on average, the hosting economies experienced additional cumulated returns of 2 percent” in stock prices in the five days following the decision, Dick said yesterday.

Investment Covered

As much as 70 percent of the $11.1 billion investment Rio needs to host the games is already committed by a government program, said Marcia Penna Firme, spokeswoman for the Rio Olympics Committee. The organizers need to raise the remaining 30 percent, and expect to get $2.82 billion of it from ticket sales and sponsorships, she said.

Eike Batista, Brazil’s wealthiest man, is backing the city’s bid. A Rio resident himself, Batista is ranked as the world’s 61st-richest man by Fortune magazine, with a net worth of $7.5 billion. Batista, 52, said he donated 23 million reais ($12.9 million) to the campaign, about a quarter of the 102 million reais total that Brazil has spent.

The donation is part of 400 million reais he is investing in Rio, including hotels and leisure and environmental projects, Batista said. He’s restoring the 1920s Hotel Gloria, cleaning up Guanabara Bay at the foot of the Sugar Loaf Mountain and removing pollution from the city’s lagoon.

Rio’s Murder Rate

Urban violence is a weakness in Rio’s bid, said Hula of Aroundtherings.com, which has tracked the games for 16 years. Rio had 2,069 murders last year, according to the state’s public security secretary. Chicago had 510, according to the annual report on the police department’s Web site.

Lula said Brazil will use the international spotlight provided by the Olympics to improve security and the life of millions of citizens living in shantytowns.

“We want to say to the world ‘yes we can,’’ Lula told reporters today in Copenhagen, where he’s making Rio’s final pitch to the IOC. ‘‘Said by an American, that sounds pretty. But we in Brazil are used to saying ‘no we can’t,’ because for too long we considered ourselves poor, like second-class citizens.”

Obama, 48, whose father was from Kenya, will attend the final bid presentation tomorrow for his adopted hometown.

Aroundtherings.com released its final estimate of the cities’ positions on Sept. 27, showing Rio in the lead with 84 points, followed by Chicago with 83 and both Madrid and Tokyo with 80. Gamesbids.com, which has covered Olympics bidding since 1998, placed Rio first in its Bidindex 2016 that was released Sept. 28 with 61.42 points, compared with 61.24 for Chicago, 59.02 for Tokyo and 57.80 for Madrid.

In the U.K., bookmakers William Hill Plc and Ladbroke.com have Chicago as the favorite, with its lead over Rio shrinking.

“We’re going to Copenhagen with the best team possible, from goalkeeper to left wing, and Lula is our captain,” said Carlos Roberto Osorio, secretary general of Rio’s bid committee.

Another possible drawback for Brazil is that it’s hosting soccer’s World Cup in 2014. Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC, said that will leave completed venues and an organization of volunteers, though it might dissuade sponsors who are unable or unwilling to support both events.

“The IOC doesn’t like to share the spotlight,” said Livingstone of Gamesbids.com.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joshua Goodman in Rio de Janeiro jgoodman19@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 1, 2009 11:45 EDT