Now the risk for Latin America’s big success story is hubris
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WHEN, back in 2003, economists at Goldman Sachs bracketed Brazil with Russia, India and China as the economies that would come to dominate the world, there was much sniping about the B in the BRIC acronym. Brazil? A country with a growth rate as skimpy as its swimsuits, prey to any financial crisis that was around, a place of chronic political instability, whose infinite capacity to squander its obvious potential was as legendary as its talent for football and carnivals, did not seem to belong with those emerging titans.
Now that scepticism looks misplaced. China may be leading the world economy out of recession but Brazil is also on a roll. It did not avoid the downturn, but was among the last in and the first out. Its economy is growing again at an annualised rate of 5%. It should pick up more speed over the next few years as big new deep-sea oilfields come on stream, and as Asian countries still hunger for food and minerals from Brazil’s vast and bountiful land. Forecasts vary, but sometime in the decade after 2014—rather sooner than Goldman Sachs envisaged—Brazil is likely to become the world’s fifth-largest economy, overtaking Britain and France. By 2025 São Paulo will be its fifth-wealthiest city, according to PwC, a consultancy.
.Now that scepticism looks misplaced. China may be leading the world economy out of recession but Brazil is also on a roll. It did not avoid the downturn, but was among the last in and the first out. Its economy is growing again at an annualised rate of 5%. It should pick up more speed over the next few years as big new deep-sea oilfields come on stream, and as Asian countries still hunger for food and minerals from Brazil’s vast and bountiful land. Forecasts vary, but sometime in the decade after 2014—rather sooner than Goldman Sachs envisaged—Brazil is likely to become the world’s fifth-largest economy, overtaking Britain and France. By 2025 São Paulo will be its fifth-wealthiest city, according to PwC, a consultancy.
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* "Brasil, País do Futuro", um atributo que Stefan Zweig nunca pensou poder vir a ser conotado como uma condenação: um país eternamente à espera do presente de prosperidade que os seus extraordinários recursos naturais pareciam, e continuam a parecer, inevitavelmente favorecer, mas que bloqueios diversos continuavam a adiar.
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A obra de Stefan Zweig, que se refugiou no Brasil em circunstâncias que ele relata logo no seu início, resume de forma aliciante a sua admiração pelo país que o acolheu e onde ele, após historiar as raízes sociológicas que explicavam as dificuldades experimentadas pelo Brasil, extrapolava a evolução inevitável: um país onde a prosperidade do seu povo seria consentânea com a sua grandeza territorial e a sua riqueza de recursos à espera de ser colhida.
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Economist desta semana dedica ao Brasil o seu habitual special report. Stefan Zweig nunca esteve tão próximo de acertar no seu prognóstico.
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