The Brazilian economy is finally coming close to the dream of creating the "broad mass consumer market" announced in 2002 as a campaign promise by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.For years, the joke in this country was that Brazil's economy was the economy of the future. The morose punchline, of course, was that the future never arrives. But finally, it seems, the future is now.
There's Petrobras, the quasi-state oil company, whose engineers have launched deep-water drilling projects in places as far afield as Angola, Colombia and the Gulf of Mexico. Petrobras announced last fall it had discovered what may be the world's largest oil find in 25 years in Brazil's offshore Tupi field. Tupi could propel Brazil into the ranks of significant oil exporters.After several boom and bust cycles in recent decades, Brazil is in the midst of its best sustained economic growth since the 1970s. Optimism there is high that the country may have turned the corner on the road to stability. And the emergence of companies such as Embraer, Odebrecht and Petrobras is one major factor in Brazil's improved fiscal health."The Brazilian economy is probably at its best moment in 25 years," said Paulo Levy, economist at the Rio-based think tank known by its Portuguese initials IPEA.
Of course, Brazil still faces some serious challenges that could take the wind out of its economic sales. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has invested little in infrastructure, and São Paulo economist Roberto Troster said that is causing Brazil to slip in world competitiveness.
References:
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s CountryData;
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