Brazil in Focus

Brazil reaps the benefits of its closed economy - for now

by Walter Molano
Russia may be a riddle wrapped in a mystery, but Brazil is a whirlwind in a teacup. One of its most criticized flaws, the closed economy, is now its greatest virtue. Open economies across the planet, such as Singapore and Chile, are bracing for 2012. The possible collapse of the euro and the growing probability of a hard landing in China darken the horizon. However, Brazil is an oasis of relative calm.

A cautionary tale from the new Brazil

by Vander Giordano & Eduardo Gomide

 In November 2009, The Economist produced a cautiously glowing report on Brazil. "If current trends hold,(which is a big if)," they write, "Brazil, with a population of 192 million and growing fast, could be one of the world's five biggest economies by the middle of this century, along with China, America, India and Japan." Predictably, Brazilians have embraced the optimistic scenario.

Brazil's risky energy play

by Norman Gall
Petrobras's huge investment program, the world's largest in the oil industry today, is being reevaluated to curtail the overheating of Brazil's economy and to prevent these investments from overreaching the state-controlled oil company's financial and operational capacity.

by Norman Gall

Petrobras is Brazilian, a source of national pride, but Petrobras is not Brazil. This truism, this obvious fact, gains new meaning as the giant state oil company seeks Brazilians capable of helping to develop its deep-water discoveries in the South Atlantic in what Petrobras President José Sérgio Gabrielli calls the biggest investment program taking place in the world today, budgeted at more than $50 billion this year.                                                            photo Agência Brasil 

by Norman Gall

Developing deep-water discoveries in the Santos Basin is forcing Petrobras to wrestle with frontier challenges in technology and logistics on a scale without precedent in the oil industry as it leaps into the future.