Why Now is the Best Time to Invest in Brazil
República Federativa do Brasil
|
|
National motto: Ordem e Progresso
(Portuguese, Order and Progress) |
 |
| Official Language |
Portuguese |
| Minority Languages |
Indigenous and Immigrant Languages, please see below |
| Capital |
Brasília |
| Largest City |
São Paulo |
| President |
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva |
Area
- Total
- % water |
Ranked 5th
8,511,965 km²
0.65% |
Population
- Total
- Density |
Ranked 5th
186,757,608 (2008 est.)
22/km² |
Independence
- Declared:
- Recognised: |
From Portugal
September 7, 1822
August 29, 1825 |
GDP (base PPP)
- Total
- GDP/head |
Ranked 9th(countries)
Ranked 7th(economies)
$1,804 trillion (2007)
$11,873 |
| Currency |
Real |
| Time zone |
UTC -2 to -5 |
| National anthem |
Hino Nacional Brasileiro |
| Internet TLD |
.br |
| Calling Code |
55 |
Real Estate development and in Brazil has been exploding the last several years.
Politics
Main article: Politics of Brazil
The 1988 constitution grants broad powers to the federal government, of which the president and vice president are elected on the same ticket by
popular vote for four-year terms. The president has extensive executive powers and is both head of state and head of government and he also appoints
the cabinet.
The Brazilian legislature, the bicameral National Congress or
Congresso Nacional, consists of the Federal Senate or Senado Federal
of 81 seats, of which three members from each state or federal district are elected according to the principle of majority to
serve eight-year terms; one-third elected after a four-year period, two-thirds elected after the next four-year period. Beside
the Senate there is the Chamber of Deputies or Câmara dos Deputados of 513 seats, whose members are elected by proportional representation to serve four-year
terms.
See also:
- Cangaço (criminal hinterland bands in the first years of the XX century)
- Café com leite (reference to Brazil's domination by the "coffee
oligarchs" in the first years of the XX century)
- Coronelismo (reference to machine politics in the first years of the XX
century)
- Integralism (influential Brazilian fascist movement in the 1930s)
States
There are 27 States of Brazil, or Estados in Portuguese, which are the federal states of Brazil,
plus the Federal District which holds the capital city, Brasília.
The twenty-six states are:
See also: Brazil, List of subnational entities, List of capitals of subnational entities
See also: List of cities in Brazil
Geography
Main article: Geography of Brazil
Brazil is characterised by the extensive low-lying Amazon
Rainforest in the north, and a more open terrain of hills and (low) mountains to the south, home to most of Brazil's
population and its agricultural base. Along the coast of the Atlantic
Ocean are also found several mountain ranges, amongst which the highest peak is the Pico da Neblina at 3,014 m. Major rivers include the Amazon, the largest river in the world by volume, the Paraná with its impressive Iguaçu falls, the Rio Negro, São
Francisco, Xingu, Madeira and the Tapajós rivers.
Situated along the equator, Brazil's climate is predominantly tropical, with little
seasonal variation, though the subtropical south is more temperate and can occasionally experience frost and snow. Precipitation is abundant in the humid Amazon Basin, though more arid landscapes are found as well, in particular in the
northeast.
Economy
Main article: Economy of Brazil
Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America, the world's tenth largest economy at market exchange rates and the ninth largest in purchasing
power parity (PPP), according to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; with large and developed agricultural, mining, manufacturing and
service sectors, as well as a large labor pool. The country has been expanding its presence in international financial and commodities markets, and is
regarded as one of the group of four emerging economies called BRIC. Brazilian exports are booming, creating a new generation of tycoons. Major export
products include aircraft, coffee, automobiles, soybean, iron ore, orange juice, steel, ethanol, textiles, footwear, corned beef and electrical
equipment. The biggest investment boom in history is under way; in 2007, Brazil launched a four-year plan to spend $300 billion to modernise its
road network, power plants and ports. Brazil's booming economy is shifting into overdrive, with biofuels and deep-water oil providing energy
independence and the government collecting enough cash to irrigate the desert and pave highways across the Amazon Rainforest. Brazil had pegged its
currency, the real, to the U.S. dollar in 1994. However, after the East Asian financial crisis, the Russian default in 1998 and the series of
adverse financial events that followed it, the Brazilian central bank temporarily changed its monetary policy to a managed-float scheme while
undergoing a currency crisis, until definitively changing the exchange regime to free-float in January 1999.
Brazil received an International Monetary Fund rescue package in mid-2002 in the amount of $30.4 billion, a record sum at that time. The IMF loan
was paid off early by Brazil's central bank in 2005 (the due date was scheduled for 2006). One of the issues the Brazilian central bank is currently
dealing with is the excess of speculative short-term capital inflows to the country in the past few months, which might explain in part the
recent downfall of the U.S. dollar against the real in the period. Nonetheless, foreign direct investment (FDI), related to long-term,
less speculative investment in production, is estimated to be $193.8 billion for 2007. Inflation monitoring and control currently plays a major
role in Brazil's Central Bank activity in setting out short-term interest rates as a monetary policy measure.
Brazil's "investment grade" economy is diverse, encompassing agriculture, industry, and a multitude of services. Brazil is finally punching its weight
with a booming economy and stronger global leadership. The recent economic strength has been due in part to a global boom in commodities
prices with exports from beef to soybeans soaring. Its prospects have been helped by huge oil and gas discoveries. A global power in agriculture and
natural resources, Brazil unleash the greatest burst of prosperity has witnessed in three decades.
Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounted for 5.1% of the gross domestic product in 2007. A performance that puts
agribusiness in a position of distinction in terms of Brazil's trade balance, in spite of trade barriers and subsidizing policies adopted by the
developed countries. The industry; from automobiles, steel and petrochemicals to computers, aircraft, and consumer durables; accounted for
30.8% of the gross domestic product. Industry is highly concentrated geographically, with the leading concentrations in metropolitan
São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas,
Porto Alegre, and Belo Horizonte. Technologically advanced industries are also highly concentrated in these locations.
Brazil is the world's tenth largest energy consumer. It's energy comes from renewable sources, particularly hydroelectricity and ethanol; and
nonrenewable sources, mainly oil and natural gas. With massive oil discoveries in the last year or two, including the largest oil discoveries in
the Western Hemisphere in the last 3 decades, Brazil is now becoming an oil superpower.
Now is the best time to invest in Brazil because of the following reasons:
- Inflation is under control.
- The trade balance is recording strong surpluses.
- The Brazilian Real is steadily growing at 25% per year against the dollar.
- The economy is continuing to grow despite a global slowdown.
- Publicly-traded companies are investing heavily.
- Fiscal policy is showing extremely satisfactory results.
- Brazil‘s risk spread remains at under 400 basis points.
- There is excess liquidity in the world.
- Brazilian balance sheets show vigorous profits.
- Vulnerability to foreign factors is declining.
- Unemployment is falling to close to U.S. and EU rates.
- Foreign investment is plentiful.
- International credibility is high and risk is low.
See also:
Demographics
Main article: Demographics of Brazil
Ethnic groups
The only clearly separated minority ethnic groups in Brazil are the various non-assimilated indigenous tribes, comprising less than 1% of the
population, who live in officially delimited reservations and either avoid contact with "civilized" people, or have assimilated
mainstream Brazilian culture to some extent but still constitute separate social and political communities. The rest of the
population can be considered a single "Brazilian" ethnic group, with highly varied racial types and backgrounds, some broad
regional trends, but without clear ethnic sub-divisions.
Most of the population descends from early European settlers (chiefly Portuguese and Italians (Wolrd's biggest Italian community outside Italy) , but also some French and Dutch), African slaves (Yoruba, Ewe, Bantu, and others), and assimilated indigenous peoples (mostly Tupi and Guarani, but also of many other ethnic groups). Trans-ethnic marriages and concubinates have been common and fairly well accepted ever since the first Portuguese settlers arrived. Starting in the late 19th century Brazil received substantial immigration from several other countries, mainly Germany,Spain, Poland, Lebanon, Japan, China and Korea. The Japanese are the largest Asian group in Brazil, but some Chinese and Koreans also settled Brazil. Most Chinese came from mainland China, but others came from Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and also from Portuguese-speaking Macau. (These Chinese from Macao could speak and understand Portuguese, and it was not hard for them to adjust to Brazilian life.) Those immigrant populations and their descendants still retain some of their original ethnic identity, however they are not closed communities and are rapidly integrating into mainstream Brazilian society: for instance, very few of the third generation can understand their grandparents' languages.
Health
Both public and private sectors finance health care in Brazil. The federal government funds universal medical care through the Sistema Unico de Saude (SUS) program, which was passed into constitutional law in 1988. SUS funds public hospitals in Brazil and contracts for medical care at individual private hospitals. Because Brazilians are not required to qualify or register for SUS, any person in Brazil can receive free medical care at any hospital with a SUS contract. Although the federal constitution guarantees universal health care to all Brazilians through SUS, the actual delivery of this care is limited by insufficient government funding. Brazilian health care also is funded by private medical insurance, which both complements and, in some cases, competes with SUS. Certain national corporations and government entities provide employees' medical insurance, which is valid only at specified hospitals.
The health care system in Brazil is divided into public and private sectors, operating in parallel. Accordingly, Brazil has both public and private medical schools, hospitals, and prehospital care services. Even private hospitals with SUS contracts often divide their emergency departments (EDs) into separate areas for patients with private medical insurance and patients with SUS, creating an often jarring disparity between modern, well-equipped areas for the insured and often overcrowded, ill-equipped areas for patients with SUS.
Brazilian hospitals may specialize in specific areas of medicine such as trauma or cardiology. Trauma hospitals provide care for patients with virtually any type of trauma, including orthopedic or hand injuries, but may refuse to admit patients with medical disease. Conversely, a hospital providing internal medicine care may transfer a patient with simple orthopedic injuries.
Physicians are widely specialized in Brazil, with 63 officially recognized medical specialties, compared to 24 specialty boards in the US. Emergency medicine (EM) per se is not yet an officially recognized medical specialty.
Although the health care systems in different regions of Brazil are based upon similar law and organizational framework, facilities in southern Brazil usually are much better equipped and physicians are better trained than in northern and Amazon regions. As in the US, physicians are poorly distributed, with an overabundance of physicians in the metropolitan areas and a shortage of physicians, especially specialists, in the poorer rural areas.
Brazil's most problematic disease is AIDS. This has
resulted to the country threatening numerous time to break the AIDS drug patents in an attempt to minimise the health cost to the
country's economy. [1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4059147.stm)
Religion
Religion is very diversified in Brazil; the constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right in practice.
The Roman Catholic Church is dominant, making Brazil the largest Catholic nation in the world. The formal link between the state and the Roman Catholicism
was severed in the late 19th century; however, the Catholic Church has continued to exert an influence on national affairs. Adepts of Protestantism are
rising in number. Until 1970, the majority of Brazilian Protestants were members of "traditional churches", mostly Lutherans, Presbyterians and Baptists.
Since then, numbers of Pentecostal and Neopentecostal members have increased significantly. Traditional African beliefs, brought by slaves, have blended
with Catholicism to create Afro-Brazilian religions such as Macumba, Candomblé, and Umbanda. Amerindians practice a wide variety of indigenous religions
that vary from group to group. Islam in Brazil was first practiced by African slaves. Today, the Muslim population in Brazil is made up of mostly Arab
immigrants. There are approximately fifty-five mosques and Muslim religious centers. A recent trend has been the increase in conversions to Islam among
non-Arab citizens.
According to the 2000 Demographic Census, 73.9% of the population is Roman Catholic; 15.4% is Protestant; 0.91% from other Christian denominations;
1.33% follows Kardecist spiritism; 0.31% follows African traditional religions; 0.01% follows Amerindian traditions; 7.35% consider themselves agnostics,
atheists or without a religion; and 0.81% are members of other religions such as Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and some practice a mixture of different
religions.
Languages
Portuguese is the official language of Brazil. It is spoken by nearly the entire population and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio,
television, and for all business and administrative purposes, with the exception of Nheengatu, an indigenous language of South America which has gained
the co-official status alongside Portuguese in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira. Moreover, Brazil is the only Portuguese-speaking nation
in the Americas, making the language an important part of Brazilian national identity and giving it a national culture distinct from its Spanish-speaking
neighbors.
Brazilian Portuguese has had its own development, influenced by the Amerindian and African languages. Due to this, the language is somewhat different
from that spoken in Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries, mainly for phonological and orthographic differences. These differences are
somewhat greater than those of American and British English. As of 2008, Portugal is considering reforming its own language to accommodate linguistic
developments in the Brazilian Portuguese since the two languages diverged.
Minority languages are spoken throughout the vast national territory. Some of these are spoken by indigenous peoples: 180 Amerindian languages are
spoken in remote areas. Others are spoken by immigrants and their descendants. There are important communities of speakers of German (mostly the
Hunsrückisch, part of the High German languages) and Italian (mostly the Talian dialect, of Venetian origin) in the south of the country, both largely
influenced by the Portuguese language.
Culture
Main article: Culture of Brazil
Sports
Main Article: Sports
in Brazil
Some fight sports with Brazilian origins have become popular around the world:
Miscellaneous topics
Brazil Real Estate 
