Almost exactly what we have been talking about in class this week. The Brazilian economy is on the rise (5% growth last year, and an expected 4.5% in 2008) and citizens formerly living in 3rd world slum conditions are now transforming their lives.
It seems the economy is being jump-started by "Well-heeled Brazilians and international corporations are pouring billions of dollars into Latin America's largest country, which most experts believe is well prepared to weather any global slowdown."
Brazil's well known social agenda is particularly impressive, and in part, may be due to the rise in the economy. Instead of a marginalized and economically ignored working class, the efforts to integrate these citizens into the economic mainstream has yielded incredible results.
Here is the full link: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/01/america/LA-FEA-FIN-Brazil-Booming-Brazil.php
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Brazil accounts for three fifths of the South American economy’s industrial production and integrates various economic groups, such as Mercosur, G-22 and the Cairns Group. The country’s scientific and technological development, together with a dynamic and diversified industrial sector, is attractive to foreign enterprise: direct investment was in the region of US$ 20 billion /year on average, compared to US$ 2 billion/year last decade.
Brazil trades regularly with over one hundred nations, with 74% of exports represented by manufactured or semimanufactured goods. Its main partners are: the EEC (representing 26% of the balance), the US (24%), Mercosur and Latin America (21%) and Asia (12%). One of the most dynamic sectors in this trade scenery is the so-called “agrobusiness” sector, which for two decades has kept Brazil amongst the most highly productive countries in areas related to the rural sector.Previously the economy in Brazil was a joke with the currency as volatile as the Turkish Lira once was and the entire nation over exposed to fluctuations in America’s fortunes. It was against this backdrop of financial insecurity that Brazil was attempting to win foreign direct investment into all sectors including the Brazil property market - and largely failing to get anything other than speculative, short term, damaging investment that took advantage of the nation’s unstable state. Following the election of President Lula da Silva the situation in Brazil has dramatically changed, at least in direct respect of the economy.
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