Why Brazil?

Timing is perfect, not only Brazil is booming but it will be the host for two major international events, the World Soccer Cup in 2014, and the Olympic Games in 2016. There will be much positive exposure and the business climate will only prosper.

At the other hand the economical climate in the most developed economies like the Euro Zone or USA are facing serious problems, those economies are already saturated with services, competition and higher prices; thus examining these times of Global Financial Crisis and other bubbles yet to explode in the mass media, capitalism may seem to struggle in some more traditional and known business destinations.

The flow of foreign investments seems to be attracted to the new market frontiers; it was created terms like “BRIC” countries to refer to those emerging countries as new capital destinations. In the globalized world corporate expansion and internationalization is a need, the market is hungry for more resources, consumers and innovation, like the Estate in Hobbes’ “Leviathan”, but a capital based one.

The technological impulse created by the last WWII, and developed through the Cold War, created technologies for transport and communications that flourished into this long period of relative world peace and Globalization, capital can and must move around the World in order to avoid recession.

Historical rivalries and even diplomatic relations have been much upgraded because this interdependency, developing business abroad was a difficult proposal before the arrival of internet, now all major global countries and corporations seek economic integration in a global level, where they can market best their resources and consumers.

Economies and politics will follow the market rules, if the capital is in trouble in one place it will follow the trail of better opportunities in a global scale and for those willing to look for those opportunities money can be found in those rough golden spots.

There is a pressing need for all investment and business decisions to take in consideration foreign markets as a real option in their management decisions. At the beginning of this century communications between people, and even language or cultural barriers are easily overcome if researched in advance.

This is a huge advantage for any business, family or corporate, small to large, the capacity to source production, supplier or market product or services anywhere in the world is something that any serious manager or entrepreneur must take in consideration.

According to majors consultants Brazil is among those places where the capital is flowing to, and opportunities blossom with millions of people reaching higher levels of income ready to demand for all types of products and services, also it is a modern western democracy, where capitalism has always been the way of living in the local culture.

Because of historical and political complications, like most of the South American countries, Brazil still have many social problems and regionalisms yet to be addressed, leaving the country with a bad fame for high crime rates, poverty and other problems associated with less developed countries.

There are still reminiscences from older periods of time, like huge land owners (among them the Catholic Church), old political families and business holding most of the resources creating one of the worst wealth distributed society in the world, media dependant of political groups, a fair deal of corruption in many levels of society, weak social infrastructure, lack of punishment for white collars, low income related violence, pollution etc.

But it is also true Brazil is already one of the largest economies in the world, practically safe from the recent Global Financial Crisis, a legitimate Democracy where the right of private property and capital is fully protected by law and a galloping capitalist free market oriented economy, having a mountain of resources available with a very compatible culture in Western terms and one of the most welcoming people in the world.

Opportunity lies where the things are still to come, in one of the speeches that marked Brazil in its current international exposure was done by President Lula (2002-2010), when addressing Brazil’s intentions to the Olympic Committee in hosting the 2016 games, he referred to Brazil and South America as being the frontier where no other Olympic game was ever hosted. 

Welfare State is not as developed as in other western democracies, problems like education, corruption, housing and wealth distribution still need to be addressed; population and entire cities living far away from most products and services yet to be installed and marketed and that’s is why Lula made reference to Brazil as being the frontier.

Brazil is still to fully develop its Welfare State, there where the market is still untapped, prices are still way cheaper than Europe or US, knowledge and technology gap, where many of the products or services being offered in richer countries are still a novelty.

However where there are obstacles there is much money to be made and opportunities yet to be created, our forefathers knew it when they went to colonize the American Continent.

This is a business guide to this frontier, in this guide you are going to find reliable information about Brazilian statistics, regions, major industries, market opportunities, business services, real state, government agencies and also some of Brazil’s economic history and cultural traits to better understand the business environment and the Brazilian mind set up.

I hope my effort and my English skills are sufficient to hold the reader’s attention and the information here displayed would be the beginning of a voyage of both profit and discovery for companies, families and whomever may be interested in to find good options for investing and good life.