News Posted On: 15/06/2009

Brazil property is to double in value over the next five years

according to experts. An article published by Michael Sutton of Write About Property stated that Brazil growing into one of the fifth largest economies in the world over the next 5 years and this would see Brazil property grow from its current price to prices similar to those found in the world's bigger economies. This will equate to prices doubling in value over the next five years said by mr Sutton.
December 2008 The relative stability of their financial systems makes Latin American countries such as Brazil an appealing option for investors, it has been claimed. According to F&C Asset Management, Brazil and other South American nations currently enjoy the "very privileged position" of having solid public sector finances and low levels of indebtedness. In addition, Brazil's banking sector remains in good health while international competitors continue to struggle in the current economic climate. "Latin American banks have learnt through bitter experience to be overcapitalised and conservative and therefore they have managed to arrive at this time of turbulence … with very solid balance sheets," said Urban Larson, manager of the F&C Latin American Equity Fund. "Reserve requirements across the region, in particular in Brazil, are very high and banks are still lending." F&C cited the recent merger of Itau and Unibanco, two of Brazil's largest banks, as evidence of the sector's current strength. Brazil's finance minister Guido Mantega recently backed the country's economy to continue its growth despite recent events in global financial markets.

December 2008 Many people consider Brazil as a third world country but they would be wrong. Brazil is a beautiful country that is full of natural resources, raw materials and a growing economy with projected GDP of 4.4% until 2012. Price Waterhouse Coopers has predicted that the E7 countries of Brazil, China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey will overtake the G7 group of ‘rich’ nations (Canada, Italy, Germany, Japan, USA, UK and France) by 2050. A third world country Brazil absolutely not ! To support this growing economy the Brazilian government is investing heavily in infrastructure. This will include roads, housing and a new airport which is due to open in 2010 at Natal, in the north east of the country. This airport will be the largest in South America and will greatly improve accessibility to the region from the rest of the world.Everything you need to know about Brazil – an area with some of the lowest property prices in the world, yet with a growing economy, tourism growth of over 15% per year, capital appreciation in the Natal area of 20% per year.

Facts and Figures Population: 188 million Language: Brazilian Portuguese Capital: Brasilia Currency: Real (BRL) GDP: 5.1% (2007) GDP (per capita): US$6,842 (2007) Foreign Direct Investment: US$35 billion Interest Rate: 11.25% Inflation: 3.6% Unemployment: 7.6%

Land area: 8,511,965 sq km Time zone: GMT - 3 Climate: Tropical Political system: Parliamentary Republic Labour Force: 89 million Exports: US$137 billion Imports: US $91 billion Industry: Textiles, shoes, chemicals, cement, lumber, iron ore, tin, steel, aircraft, motor vehicles and parts, other machinery and equipment Agriculture: Coffee, soybeans, wheat, rice, corn, sugarcane, cocoa, citrus; beef Natural Resources: Bauxite, gold, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates, platinum, tin, uranium, petroleum, hydropower, timber

Did you know this about Brazil ?

• Brazil is the world's fifth biggest country. It covers an area much larger than Western Europe and is slightly bigger than the United States excluding Alaska. • Brazil shares a border with every other country in South America apart from Ecuador and Chile – ten in total – and has lived in peace with all of them for almost 140 years. (The last South American war involving Brazil was the conflict between the 'Triple Alliance' and Paraguay in the 1860s.) • It is estimated that Brazil contains greater biodiversity than any other country on Earth. The rivers of the Amazon region, for example, are home to more than 1,500 different species of fish. • The Amazon river, most of which lies inside Brazil, could be the longest in the world. Some scientists argue that the true source of the Amazon is a place in southern Peru, not in the north as previously thought, in which case it would have a total length of 4,225 miles, about 90 miles longer than the Nile. • With more than 187 million people, Brazil is the world's 5th most populous country after China, India, the United States and Indonesia. The population is growing by approximately 1% per year, a lower rate than in most other developing countries. According to current projections, Pakistan will overtake Brazil as the 5th most populous country by 2015. • Brazil has the world's second biggest black population after Nigeria, the largest number of people of Japanese ancestry outside Japan, and more people of Lebanese or Syrian extraction than the combined populations of Lebanon and Syria. • Brazil has an indigenous Indian population of around 450,000, comprising more than 200 peoples who speak more than 180 different languages. According to the National Foundation for the Indian (FUNAI) the indigenous population has been growing at a rate of more than 3.5% per year and is now four times greater than in 1950. FUNAI also estimates that in the Brazilian Amazon there are more than 60 'uncontacted' Indian groups living in complete isolation from the outside world. Government policy is to avoid contact with such groups unless they are in extreme danger. • More than 80% of Brazilians live in urban areas. São Paulo, in the south-east of the country, is the biggest and most populous city in South America. The population of the city proper is 11 million, and the adjacent metropolitan area has a total population of around 18 million. According to the UN World Urbanization Prospects report (2007) the São Paulo metropolitan area is the fifth most populous urban agglomeration in the world, after Tokyo, New York, Mexico City and Mumbai. • Brazil has the 9th biggest economy in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) derived from purchasing power parity (PPP) calculations. • The Brazilian company Embraer is the world's third biggest aircraft-producer and exporter after Boeing and Airbus. It specialises in 'regional' jets, which is to say medium-sized planes that seat up to 110 passengers. • Brazil is the world's largest exporter of sugar, coffee, orange juice, soya, beef, tobacco and chicken. In terms of agriculture the Financial Times describes the country as "a powerhouse whose size and efficiency few competitors can match". • Against a backdrop of rising concerns about climate change and declining oil reserves, Brazil has become a pioneer in the production of ethanol (produced from sugarcane) and other biofuels. More than three-quarters of the automobiles sold in Brazil have flex-fuel engines, capable of running on petrol, ethanol, or a mixture of the two. • Brazil is participating in the biggest ever scientific project entailing cooperation between different countries – the International Space Station (ISS). In March 2006 the astronaut Marcos Pontes became the first Brazilian (and the first native Portuguese speaker) to go into space when he embarked on a mission to the ISS. He stayed there for a week, performing experiments involving nanotechnology and biotechnology. • Brazil has the only source of synchrotron light, which permits the study of atoms and molecules, in the Southern Hemisphere. The equipment – developed, built and operated entirely by Brazilians – belongs to the National Synchrotron Light Laboratory in Campinas, São Paulo state. • Brazil has become the world’s leading source of satellite images, due to the government's policy of providing users in Brazil and neighbouring countries with free access to the images produced by the Sino-Brazilian Earth Resources Satellite. • In 2000, a team of scientists based in São Paulo achieved the first ever sequencing or 'decoding' of the genome of a plant pathogen. The bacterium in question was the insect-borne Xylella fastidiosa, which infects citrus fruit and other commercially important produce. • Brazil's Aids programme is widely seen as a model for other developing countries. In the early 1990s the World Bank predicted that in 2000 the number of Brazilians with HIV would be 1.2 million and rising. The current number, however, is around 630,000. The government puts great emphasis on prevention, with education and publicity campaigns actively and openly promoting safe sex among high-risk and vulnerable groups. Brazil was also the first developing country to commit to providing free anti-retroviral medicines to people with HIV, and the government has put pressure on international pharmaceutical companies in order to reduce the prices at which it buys anti-retroviral drugs. • The Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer is universally considered one of the most important figures in international modern architecture. As well as being the major influence on the construction of Brasília, Brazil's new capital, in the late 1950s, he has also designed numerous important buildings in other countries – including the United Nations headquarters in New York. • Since 2003, in the colonial town of Parati in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil has been hosting an annual international literary festival that attracts a large number of famous participants. Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Martin Amis, Christopher Hitchens, Toni Morrisson and Eric Hobsbawm are among those who have attended. • The most famous of the gentle bossa nova melodies of the 1950s and 60s, The Girl from Ipanema by Antonio Carlos ('Tom') Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes is generally thought to be among the five most-played pieces of music (either live or on the radio) in the world. • The annual carnival in Salvador, capital of the state of Bahia, is the world's biggest street party, attracting around 2 million people (including an average of 800,000 Brazilian and foreign tourists). The music is provided by mobile sound systems (trios elétricos) and over a hundred parade groups (blocos). • The first person to make an 'unassisted' flight in an aircraft (i.e. a heavier-than-air machine, not a balloon) was the Brazilian Albert Santos-Dumont, who piloted the 14 Bis over a distance of about 60 metres, at the modest altitude of 2-3 metres, in Paris on 23 October 1906. The Wright brothers had flown a similar distance in the United States in December 1903, but in order to become airborne their machine required launch rails and a catapult. • The city of Rio de Janeiro throws a New Year's Eve party that is probably the biggest – and arguably the most spectacular – in the world. Around two million people, all of them dressed at least partly in white (a popular tradition adopted from Afro-Brazilian religion), congregate on the huge crescent-shaped expanse of Copacabana beach to watch a midnight firework display
• Rio also gets into the record books with its Christmas festivities: the city's 82-metre high artificial Christmas tree (a conical metal framework covered in lights), which floats in the middle of Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon near Ipanema beach, is the biggest of its kind in the world.

Land

Brazil is the largest Latin American country, occupying an area of 3,286,470 sq. miles (8,511,965 sq. km) and covering nearly half of the South American landmass. It is the fifth largest country in the world after the Russian Federation, Canada, China and the United States.
The equator passes through the north of the country near Macapá; the Tropic of Capricorn passes through the south near São Paulo. Brazil's maximum width, 2,684 miles (4,319 km), is almost the same as its maximum distance from north to south, 2,731 miles (4,394 km).
Brazil has ten neighbours: the Department of French Guiana and the countries of Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela and Colombia to the north; Uruguay and Argentina to the south; and Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru to the west. Ecuador and Chile are the only two countries in continental South America that do not border Brazil. The Atlantic Ocean extends along the entire eastern side of the country, which has 4,578 miles (7,367 km) of coastline.

Population

Brazil is the sixth most populous country in the world after China, India, the United States, Indonesia and the Russian Federation. Its poulation is approximately 185 million, and is predominantly young: 62% of Brazilians are under 29 years of age. Brazil's rate of population growth, high throughout the early and mid-20th century, has decreased significantly since 1970, due largely to economic modernisation and a dramatic urbanisation process.
Brazil's average population density is low compared to that of many other countries. Most people live on or near the Atlantic coast of the south-eastern and north-eastern states. Since about 1970 there has been intense migration from the north-east to the south-east, as well as from rural to urban areas. Recently the population flow has also turned towards the less inhabited central-western and northern regions.
Brazil is a racially mixed country in which the majority of people have ancestors in more than one of the three main groups: white Europeans (mostly Portuguese); black Africans (mainly from the west of the continent); and the original indigenous Indian population. In the first half of the 20th century, as a consequence of war and economic pressures, sizeable contingents of immigrants came to Brazil from various parts of western, central and eastern Europe. The first 500 or so immigrants from Japan arrived in Brazil in 1908, to be followed by another quarter of a million over the the next sixty years. It is a little-known fact that today Brazil contains the largest number of people of Japanese ancestry outside Japan, most of whom live in São Paulo state or the south of the country.

Bilateral Trade 2008 By Embassy of Brazil

In 2008 the United Kingdom was Brazil's fifteenth trading partner in terms of exports and eighteenth in terms of imports.
From 1998 to 2008, Brazilian exports to the United Kingdom grew by 183.1% in total. In 2008 exports grew by almost 15%. Brazilian imports from the United Kingdom fell from 1998 to 1999 and remained at that year's level in 2000 and 2001. After an increase of almost 9%, in 2002, imports declined by almost 11%, in 2003. In 2004 imports grew by over 12%, by 1.5% in 2005, and by just over 3% in 2006. In 2007 there was a huge increase of almost 38%, followed by a similar increase of almost 31% in 2008. The balance of trade has shown a surplus for Brazil, except in 1998. In 2008, the surplus of over $1.2 billion is the third highest ever achieved.
Brazilian exports to the United Kingdom are diversified, even though raw materials and semi-manufactured products have always figured as important items. Manufactured products of a higher aggregated value are beginning to have more weight. Brazilian imports from the United Kingdom are predominantly centred on factors of production and capital goods.

December 2008 US billionaire Sam Zell has said that Brazil could represent the best market for overseas investors in the current financial climate. Speaking at a business forum in New York yesterday (December 2nd), the chairman of Equity Group Investments explained that Brazil's vast resources and large pool of skilled professionals makes it an extremely attractive option, Reuters reports. "If you look at all of the facts, I don't think there is a better environment in all the world than Brazil," he said. Mr Zell added that Brazil has managed to escape the worst effects of the global credit crunch, with confidence remaining in the country's banking and housing sectors. He revealed that malls owned by Equity Group in Brazil have experienced same-store growth of 12 per cent over the past year. F&C Asset Management recently stated that Brazilian banks currently have "very solid balance sheets", due to low levels of indebtedness and healthy public sector finances.

July 2008 According to a recent research published by Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) – one of the most respected Brazilian economical institutions -, the purchase of properties (second home) by foreign tourists already generated a total of US$ 646 million in direct investments in Brazil. Among the major investors are the North Americans, Spanish and Italians, who transferred to Brazil 102, 82 and 63 million dollars, respectively.
The total amount invested by Europeans comes up to US$ 450 million. According to FGV’s study, 79% of the investors already knew Brazil and 76% mentioned “sun & beach” as the main reason for their investment.

Road Traffic:right side Electricity: Voltage:110/220V* Frequency:60 Hz Plug types:, C, Note:*127V found in states of Bahia, Paraná (including Curitiba), Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Minas Gerais (though 220V may be found in some hotels). Other areas are 220V only, with the exception of Fortaleza (240V). TV Systems: System:PAL M DVD-Region: 4 Geography Bordering countries: Argentina 1,261 km Bolivia 3,423 km Colombia 1,644 km French Guiana 730 km Guyana 1,606 km Paraguay 1,365 km Peru 2,995 km Suriname 593 km Uruguay 1,068 km Venezuela 2,200 km
Location: Eastern South America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean Area: total: 8,511,965 sq km land: 8,456,510 sq km water: 55,455 sq km Climate: mostly tropical, but temperate in south Terrain: mostly flat to rolling lowlands in north; some plains, hills, mountains, and narrow coastal belt Economy GDP: $1.99 trillion (2008 est.) $1.892 trillion (2007) $1.795 trillion (2006) note: data are in 2008 US dollars GDP growth rate: 5.2% (2008 est.) 5.4% (2007 est.) GDP per capita: $10,100 (2008 est.) $9,800 (2007 est.) $9,400 (2006 est.) note: data are in 2008 US dollars Inflation rate: 5.8% (2008 est.) Currency: real (BRL) Exchange rates: reals (BRL) per US dollar - 1.8644 (2008 est.), 1.85 (2007 est.), 2.1761 (2006), 2.4344 (2005), 2.9251 (2004) People Population: 198,739,269 note: Brazil conducted a census in August 2000, which reported a population of 169,872,855; that figure was about 3.8% lower than projections by the US Census Bureau, and is close to the implied underenumeration of 4.6% for the 1991 census (July 2009 est.) Growth rate: 1.199% (2009 est.) Religions: Roman Catholic (nominal) 73.6%, Protestant 15.4%, Spiritualist 1.3%, Bantu/voodoo 0.3%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.2%, none 7.4% (2000 census) Languages: Portuguese (official and most widely spoken language); note - less common languages include Spanish (border areas and schools), German, Italian, Japanese, English, and a large number of minor Amerindian languages
Government Capital: name: Brasilia time difference: UTC-3 (2 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) daylight saving time: +1hr, begins third Sunday in October; ends third Sunday in February note: Brazil is divided into four time zones, including one for the Fernando de Noronha Islands Independence: 7 September 1822 (from Portugal)
Note: Information on Brazil was mainly sourced from CIA's World Factbook and may represent an American point of view. To learn more about Brazil, please visit one of the links below.