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IMPORTANT: As of July 1st, 2011, functions once performed by the Wisconsin Department of Commerce have been moved to other state agencies and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. The former Commerce web site will continue to exist for the next several months as resources are moved to new web site locations. We will make every attempt possible to direct our users to the new locations as web resources are moved.

Division of Investment and Export
PO Box 7970
Madison, WI 53707-7970
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Vol. 7 #4, March 2008

Booming Brazilian Market
Brazilian FlagBrazil’s economy has experienced sustained growth and has reached some important milestones.  While import barriers are notoriously high in Brazil, the country has now begun to run a trade deficit. Exports have not fallen, but imports, especially of industrial products, are up significantly. Businesses are willing and able to purchase imported equipment, components, and supplies in order to enhance the quality of their own products and their competitive advantage. The currency has remained high enough to favor consumers and those seeking imports of everything from commodities to machines and retail goods but at the same time the Brazilian real has not gotten so expensive that exports have been crippled. The 6 percent growth in Brazilian industrial production in 2007 over the previous year was attributed to increased domestic demand for consumer goods, especially durable ones like vehicles and household appliances.

Long one of the world’s largest debtor nations, Brazil has now become a foreign creditor. Brazil’s Central Bank reported that the country’s international reserves, swollen by record exports of agricultural commodities and oil and investment inflows, exceeded gross foreign liabilities for the first time in January. The strengthening of the economy has been steady. For the most part the inflation threat has remained under control and foreign direct investment has been on the rise.

To highlight the growing importance of the Brazilian market, the Federation of Commerce of the State of São Paulo (Fecomércio- SP) released a report in January showing that if the city of São Paulo were a country, it would be among the 50 largest economies in the world; in 47th place, ahead of countries like Egypt or Kuwait and equal to New Zealand. The GDP of the city of São Paulo is ahead of that of 22 U.S. states. The city has 11 million inhabitants.