Thursday, June 16, 2011

With a robust economy and a stable political environment to sustain it, Brazil is all set to play a bigger role in global affairs, says Saurabh Kumar

In the 70s and till the better half of the 80s, there used to be an utterly unfunny joke in America that was said ad nauseum whenever somebody talked about the “prospects” of Brazil as a nation. It was said that “Brazil is a country of the future and will remain so forever”. It was well into the second half of the 90s that Americans stopped laughing on that joke.At the turn of the decade, even the reminiscences of that joke are gone. Brazil's future, it seems, has finally arrived. In fact, one of the most epochal issues that the US seems to be currently dealing with is the rise of Brazil and its manifestations in the world in general and in Latin America in particular. There is a basis for that.

Firstly, the economy. Nearly all the economic tidings coming out of Brazil in the recent past have been positive, and Brazil’s international status has colossally leaped as a result. The biggest economy in Latin America and now the world’s 8th largest, Brazil’s egress as a middle-income BRIC economy, with robust growth rates propelled by the worldwide commodities spike, have placed Brazil as a global actor. Annual growth is proposed at close to 8.5 per cent for the better part of the next decade. Economic steadiness has been well-kept by consecutive administrations and continues to be a high precedence. Inflation is controlled and dirigible, and liabilities are investment grade. In fact, Brazil is probably the only developing nation that has been successful in containing the inflation below five per cent in spite of the robust growth. Direct, fiscally-accountable steps are being taken to cut down poverty and the income disparity. Banco Itaú, Embraer, Petrobras, Vale, and a number of other firms are internationally rivalrous.

“We can render inclusive growth as in all likelihood no other economy can, given the magnitude and the level of inequality,” said Marcelo Neri, economist at the Center for Social Policies at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, while talking to TSI. “Brazil is treading what people like to call a middle path. We are respecting the prescripts of the market and, simultaneously, we are doing very forward-looking social policy."

This waterfall of good economic tidings has had crucial worldwide entailment. Possibly the most apparent has been Brazil’s wallop in international trade discourses, where the nation's hold has now proven equal to its reach. Brazil can no more be taken for granted, it is now an international voice on trade. In fact, its endeavours to hammer a fresh, non-parasitic centre of gravity have fundamentally altered negotiation kinetics going onward. Alongside other concerned players, Brazil now has an essential and in fact historic possibility to overture the international and hemispheric trade and investment agenda in a mode that is in accordance with its attempts to be realised as an accountable international actor.

Brazil is not very vocal in international energy discourses, but it’s coming up real big and is willing to stay here forever. Already the economies are sucking up cane molasses based ethanol as fast as the factories in Amazon can make it. Having said that, it’s Brazil’s late finds of offshore reserves of oil and gas that are truly seizing the world’s attention. With these finds, Brazil has the potentiality to become the nation with the 8th largest oil reserves, surpassing Russia. That indeed is a game changer. Once this reaches to production stage, Brasilia will have an even robust and positive role in hemispheric and global affairs.

So what are the areas where Brazil can make its presence felt? To start with, it can play a momentous role in appreciating the cause of international nuclear non-proliferation, especially with reference to tussle between Iran and the west. Brazil is one of the few countries which have voluntarily relinquished the development of nuclear weapons. Yet it keeps a progressive nuclear platform for peaceful intents. The Lula regime has also called on statesmen from the West Asia for summit discourses on a developing commerce, investment and energy programme between the two regions. And that has started bearing fruits.

After China, Brazil has turned out to be the second most favoured address for foreign investment. It indeed shows that worldwide businesses are surefooted in Brazil. Like China, the nation has altered beyond realisation over the past two decades and political stability is one of the primary factors behind this good show. Also, it is because of the stable government that Brazil has been able to bring in a lot of restructuring on the economic side. It is at present a creditor to the IMF with a brand-new, brawny currency. And to boot, its trade surplus, mostly held in US Treasury notes, now makes it the fourth-largest creditor of the United States.

“The potency of the Brazilian economic system was illustrated during the fiscal crisis, when it experienced only two contractions before crisply rebounding. Brazil is no more high beta on the international system. It has domestic services that stabilise things rather than merely trusting on commodities and the global economy,” says noted economist Michael Konstantinov who keeps an eye on Latin American economies, while talking to TSI.

Surely all this could not have been possible without visionary leaders. Two popular presidents have collectively carried out four terms since coming back to stable, civilian regime. It has enhanced its soft power too. The nation is beaming to be hosting the 2014 Soccer World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics.

But it is important that it keeps the momentum going. Brasilia woke up to a new president last week who brings in an assurance of four more years of the policies of incumbant President Luiz InÁcio Lula da Silva after electorates picked his annointed heir Dilma Rousseff, 62, a former Marxist guerrilla turned civil servant, to become its first female president. Rousseff, who similar to Lula is fashionably called by one name “Dilma,” took 56 per cent in run-off poll, easily vanquishing her centrist rival Jose Serra, who got close to 44 per cent. Experts believe that this triumph was due in large part to Rousseff's deep association with Lula and her assurance that she will uphold most of the same policies that sparked Brazil's rise in the global economy and made Lula's eight years in power a huge success.

The victory was due in large part to Rousseff's close ties to the incumbent and the pair's promise that she will continue many of the same policies that catalysed Brazil's rise in the world economy and made Lula's eight years in Brasilia a massive success story. Most importantly, he made living better for Brazil's underprivileged and his reformist policies helped fold the yawning gap between the haves and have-nots.

Lula's legacy is acknowledged by friends and adversaries alike. Not only did he keep it stable at both political and economic fronts, he was also instrumental in giving Brazil a larger and dignified role in global politics. Lula discarded Brazil's traditional argumentation of non-intervention and got positively involved in conflicts in Haiti, Honduras and yes, Iran. The way he stole the show at Tehran with his Turkish counterpart rattled the west massively. It would be interesting to see if the president-elect will be successful in carrying forward his polices or not.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
GIDF Club of IIPM Lucknow Organizes Blood Donation Camp
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM Marches Ahead in B-School Rankings...

IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board
IIPM Prof Rajita Chaudhuri's Snaps
Ragging rights and wrongs
Indian universities and higher education institutes seem to be caught in a time warp teaching things

No comments: