Brazil: the road ahead.
by Monteiro, Mariana
If the BRIC economies--Brazil, Russia, India and China--were in a
race, Brazil would be running close to last place. In 2006, the
country's gross domestic product grew 3.7%. Compare that with China
at 10.7%, India at 9.2% and Russia at 6.7%. It's not all bad.
"What people don't understand is that the BRIC countries are
not part of a competition to see who grows the fastest," says Paulo
Leme. an economist at U.S. financial institution Goldman Sachs.
In fact, Brazil needs only to maintain an average annual growth
rate of 3.5% to become an economic force in the next 40 years, Leme
says.
Leme is optimistic, citing a revision to the gross domestic
product, recently released, reporting an average growth rate of 3.4%
between 2000 and 2006. The recipe for growth he says, is to raise the
investment and savings rates by continuing to open up the economy. That
was what took China to first place among the BRIC economies.
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