Brazil - the country of the future?

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Brazil: the country of the future?February 20, 2012 1:55 am 1 comment

Seventy years ago, Austrian writer Stefan Zweig described his adopted homeland Brazil as “the country of thefuture”, and said it was “destined undoubtedly to play one of the most important parts in the future developmentof our world”. It has taken seven decades for this prophecy to look remotely possible. While much of the world’seconomies stagnate and shrink, Brazil’s economy is flourishing.

Graham Vincent

Brazil has replaced the UK as the world’s sixth largest economy, according to the Centre for Economics andBusiness Research (CEBR), after it grew by 7.5% in 2010.

And despite growth slowing to 3.5% last year, the CEBR predict the world’s fourth largest democracy to stabiliseand remain so beyond 2020.

Brazil is a young country. Its constitution was ratified only in 1988 after the repressive military regime was oustedthree years earlier. But its potential is huge.

It is a member of the prestigious BRIC Group of emerging economies alongside Russia, India and China, which areseen as symbolizing the transformation of the global economy in the twenty-first century. Of developing countries,only China receives more direct foreign investment.

Part of Brazil’s rise is explained by sheer good fortune, such as being blessed with vast expanses of fertile land and






abundant supplies of minerals, water and other resources. Circumstances that it does not control, such as theemergence of China as the fastest growing market for Brazilian exports, have also played a role.

Its current prominence as a major world economy is often attributedto the discovery of abundant oil reserves in the Atlantic Ocean. The true extent of the reserves is not yet known,but the world’s fifth largest country is already oil self-sufficient, meaning the export power of the discoveries isenormous.

The oil fields off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state are estimated to hold more than 50bn barrels of oil, but these areburied some 7km (4.4 miles) under the ocean floor beneath a thick layer of salt.

China’s astounding rise to world superpower has also contributed to Brazil’s ascent. China has invested $10bn intothe state owned energy giant Petrobas, in return receiving between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels of oil per day for10 years – barely a blemish on Brazil’s proven reserve of 14 billion barrels.

Brazil is a robust producer and exporter of both manufactured goods and foodstuffs and raw materials. Increasedworld commodity prices have had a big impact on the value of Brazilian agricultural and mineral production. Chinahas become a key market for Brazilian exports, becoming its main trade partner.

The economic upturn has also led to an evident rise in construction in Brazil. In a project launched by thegovernment called My Home My Life costing billions of dollars, one million cheaper homes will be built across thecountry enabling people to buy their own homes. This in turn brings employment. In 2011, Brazil had the highestrate of people in employment in South America – 94.2% of a 200 million population.

Brazil’s economic success has not only lifted millions of Brazilian’sout of poverty, it has also raised expectations of a new lower-middle class – known in Brazil as the ‘C class.’ Theemerging middle class can now buy houses, buy cars, go on holidays to the popular beach resorts of North EastBrazil, and have an expendable income to spend on Brazilian products and services.

A sophisticated banking system has developed from years of high inflation and unstable economics.






A proverb Brazilians are fond of using to justify the vast natural resources of the country is “God is Brazilian”. Thenational flag epitomizes its assets; the green that dominates the banner symbolizes the vast lushness of the Braziliancountryside and the fertility of its fields, and the yellow diamond-shaped figure near the centre stands for gold and,by extension, the country’s natural wealth.

Brazil is blessed with huge amounts of natural resources. Its huge potential has been recognised ever since thePortuguese landed in Brazil in 1500. To the Portuguese, from whom Brazil gained independence in 1822, theopportunities seemed limitless. A Jesuit priest who visited in the early 1500’s wrote, “If there is a paradise here onearth, I would say it is in Brazil.”

No more so than in the state of Minas Gerais. The town of Ouro Preto – Black Gold – was born at the end of theseventeenth century after gold was discovered in the nearby Serra do Espinhaco mountains. A gold boom ensuedand thousands of slaves were shipped over from Africa to work in the gold mines.

At various junctures over the next three centuries diamonds,numerous minerals, timber, iron, rubber, sugarcane and coffee were discovered by the Portuguese and plundered.All took their turn to be the prime export commodity, and to this day continue to contribute to the rise of Brazil, nomore so than sugarcane.

Ethanol fermented from sugarcane is Brazil’s most promising source of renewable energy, and it has enabled Brazilto become the undisputed world leader in the ethanol industry.

Brazil is all about the future. The coming decade will announce Brazil’s arrival as a global player. The 2014 FIFAWorld Cup will be held in 12 cities, and Rio de Janeiro will host the biggest sporting event of them all, theOlympics, two years later.

In preparation for its projection on to the world stage, former President Lula and his successor, Dilma Rousseff,have embarked on major public works initiatives.

The Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo high-speed railway is scheduled to be operational by 2014. At a cost of nearly£6bn, passengers will be able to stroll through Ibirapuera Park in Sao Paulo then sip a caipirinha beachside atCopacabana all within two hours.

Former President Lula introduced the Bolsa Familia (FamilyAllowance) as the centrepiece of his social policy, providing financial aid to around 12 million poor families.






All of this is designed to cultivate a ‘legacy’. Rousseff, Brazil’s first female President, knows the importance for thecountry of a successful World Cup and Olympics.

Brazil also aims the 2014 World Cup as a catalyst for attracting more tourists, and hopes to double incoming touristnumbers from 5.2million in 2010 to more than 10million in 2020. As Ricardo Trade, FIFA’s head organiser for 2014,concedes however, to achieve this the safety issue is key.

The favelas – the Portuguese word for slums – of Rio de Janeiro have seen a major pacification drive, with thepolice and the special forces unit BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion) working together to eradicate druggangs. Notable successes in South America’s largest slum, Rocinha, and in Complexo do Alemao last year werehowever tempered by the deaths of numerous policemen. A lot of work still remains before 2014.

The final legacy that the World Cup will give Brazilians is 22bn reais (£8bn) of infrastructure investment, which isbeing spent on everything from improving airports, to new rail and bus systems, and roads.

But Brazil still has major challenges to overcome. It is young, andlike any other adolescent, can be a little unstable. Swings in exchange rates and share values are commonplace, and,although Brazilians are gradually seeing the benefit of greater spending power, they are still in part held back byastronomic interest rates.

Brazil still has huge social and economic inequality, despite the introduction of the Bolsa Familia. Alongsidegleaming apartments housing the affluent chronic poverty is abundant. Favelas line the hills of Rio, while west inSao Paulo in the wealthy neighbourhood of Morumbi less than 200 metres separates the rich and poor.

There has undoubtedly been pronounced development in Brazil over the past three decades since the right-wingmilitary dictatorship fell, but tough challenges lay in wait.

Journalist Larry Rohter, who lived in Brazil for two decades, argues the country still has testing times ahead. Hesays it is yet to resolve the Amazon problem; “why does it permit the wholesale devastation of the Amazon, whosehealth as a functioning eco-system is vital to all of us if we are to avoid global warming?” He also questions Brazil’sinability to tackle the widespread violence in its large cities and why a society built on notions of cordiality appearto turn a blind eye to terrible inequities based on class and race. These are fundamental to the Brazil question.

Another journalist Pedro Curi, 29, from Rio de Janeiro, sees Brazilgetting “stronger and stronger” but concedes it is “growing in a wrong way. We have a very poor population, thecities are getting bigger without control and the big companies, in 2012, can’t think in a sustainable way.” Rio +20,a United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio in June this year, has the opportunity tofacilitate change.

Brazilians have a mordant cliché to which any problems can be assuaged: that Brazil is the country of the futureand always will be. Time will tell.






1 Comment

Leucemia MariaFebruary 20, 20129:15 pm

muito legal! parabens e viva a saude!

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