http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/world/americas/13brazil.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Brazil&st=cse

The article from the New York Times discusses how Brazil is booming and people are picking up and moving there to take advantage of the opportunities.

Brazil is a great place to visit and has huge potential on many facets: economic growth, multi-culturalism, natural resources, not to mention its now-famous drink the caipirinha, which is made from cachaça, which is made from sugar cane and is 95% alcohol. We called it the truth serum when we brought unsuspecting Americans to Brazil because after 2 caipirinhas they were spilling their life story.

When I worked for Sterling Software we built a direct sales office there for selling enterprise software before many realized how fantastic a market this was. We had 25 sales and technicians there and closed several multi-million dollar deals, grew the office and developed some great Brazilian staff.  The first thing we had to do when starting in Brazil was to convince our company CFO that the Brazilian market and currency was strong enough for us to use accruals instead of cash accounting. Rather than explain this is in excruciating financial detail, this means we could use the same kind of accounting to recognize software sales as we could in the rest of the world rather than starving the local Brazilian offices to take cash out of the country.

Nowadays, others are starting to recognize Brazil’s huge potential and now, rapid growth and development:

• Brazil’s natural resources, including the Amazon River, its vast river basin of almost three million square miles, and the largest rainforest in the world offer huge development possibilities, somewhat tempered by the world’s growing “green” consciousness against rainforest destruction. Also, one of the largest oil discoveries worldwide in the last 50 years was in the deep water off the Brazilian coast. Brazil will become an OPEC member once it starts oil production from this discovery.
• In 2010, Brazil was the seventh largest economy in the world in terms of GDP PPP and is poised to pass Russia for sixth place in 2011. Its population is the fifth largest in the world and continues to grow rapidly. Its culture is racially diverse and multicultural.
• Over the last 15 years, the Brazilian economy has rapidly expanded, and its currency has stabilized for the first time in its modern history. Its current president is the second leader in a row to come from a supposedly anti-business, populist background, but she has continued a surprisingly pro-business trend and oversees economic policy that has continued to sustain Brazil’s rapid economic ascent.

Brazil’s standing in the world and its diplomatic power is increasing, but it still does not have as much influence as its economic and natural resources might indicate. However, it is a leader in the non-aligned country movement; one of the “BRICS” countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), an informal organization of large developing countries.  Brazil will also host the Olympics in 2016 and the Soccer World Cup in 2014, the two largest sporting events in the world and both firsts for South America.

Clearly, Brazil’s political and international influence is on the rise. This also seems to be an inflection point in the world’s balance of power, as the stalwarts of the advanced world like the U.S. and Europe seem to be mired in eternal economic crises while the Brazil’s of the world are rising.

What do you think? Please comment.