BRAZILIAN PROJECTS

          São Paulo state is the economic powerhouse of Brazil, responsible for around 40% of the entire GDP.
          This wealth was founded on the rich agricultural land which made the state the world´s largest exporter of coffee and orange juice, and a major exporter of sugar.
          If you are reading this outside Brazil then the chances are that the orange juice, coffee and sugar you had with your breakfast today came from here.
          (There is also a fair chance that the chicken you will have for lunch and the steak for dinner tonight may also have originated in Brazil but that is another story.)
          This agricultural bounty is still continuing with ethanol production from sugar cane. Despite common belief abroad, most of Brazil´s ethanol is not produced in the
          Amazon but in upstate São Paulo. Industry has also developed and São Paulo is now an exporter of cars, planes, steel, aluminum and all kinds of raw and manufactured
          goods as well as services. Although much of this development was led by foreign multinationals for decades, it was the Brazilian management and workforce which
          coped with the problems associated with the boom and bust years and the lost decade when Brazil was felled by hyperinflation, a huge foreign debt and feeble growth.

          Brazil is also helping the US and other countries cope with the ongoing financial crisis as foreign firms, particularly banks, remit the hefty profits they have made here to
          prop up their parent companies´ shaky balance sheets. Foreign companies remitted US$ 12.358 billion in profits and dividends between January and April this year.
          A quarter of this figure went to troubled banks abroad.

          On top of this dynamism the metropolitan region of São Paulo forms a consumer market of almost 20 million people. In short, São Paulo is a financier´s dream with tens of
          thousands of corporate clients and millions of individuals all needing services ranging from investment banking to mortgages and car loans. São Paulo has always been a
          major financial center but the boom the Brazilian economy is enjoying has expanded its influence at world level. The Bovespa and the BM&F have recently merged to form
          the world's third-largest publicly traded securities exchange. Petrobras is now the sixth-largest company in the world in terms of market capitalization. It may not be based in
          São Paulo but much of its potentially rich oil reserves lie off the São Paulo coast. Brazil´s expanding economy has led more companies to list on the stock exchange.
          Around 10 middle market banks and 15 homebuilders have opened their capital over the last two years. The pace has slowed somewhat and some listings have been
          postponed this year due to the international financial crisis but this crisis has had little effect on Brazil to date.

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