How big is the B in BRIC?

Brazil has certainly come a long way in recent years, and these days is without doubt not just a regional but a global powerhouse. Steady economic growth (barring the recent global hiccup), a fiscally responsible government led by the erstwhile leftist radical Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that has deliberately nurtured some of the country's still partly state-owned companies into real world class corporations (for example Banco do Brasil, energy company Petrobras and mining giant Vale), and a genuine and significant reduction in poverty levels have all helped Brazil take its rightful place on the world stage. And to top it all the country has now been awarded both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. As a result of this success, Brazil is now a fully fledged member of the world's leading but loosely tied bloc of developing economies known as BRIC - along with Russia, India and China. But how does the biggest South American nation really compare with the other three? According to the CIA World Factbook, Brazil's economy in purchasing power parity terms last year was worth US$1.99tn, or US$10,200 per capita. That compares quite favorably with Russia at US$2.27tn in total (but US$16,100 per capita), and India at US$3.30tn (albeit a paltry US$2,900 per capita) but well behind China at US$7.97tn and an actually quite respectable US$6,000 per capita. But the raw figures can be deceiving. China and India have been growing at considerably faster rates than Brazil in recent years, while Russia is starting from a much higher base. China is the "factory of the world," India is Silicon Valley II and Russia is Europe's Saudi Arabia, at least say some. And Brazil? While it may be the world's football capital, in many other areas it lags well behind. The country still depends far too much on exporting low value-added raw materials such as iron ore, while the development of its financial system has a long way to go, as seen by the contradiction between its miserly rates of bank penetration and its enormous banks. And that's not to mention the dire problem of violent crime that the country faces. China in particular has been developing its infrastructure in the past few years in a much more concerted way than probably any other country in the world. Brazil, meanwhile, has the worst logistics infrastructure of all the BRIC nations, according to a recent study carried out by the local logistics and supply chain institute (ILOS). Brazil has 212,000km of paved roads, while China has 1.58Mkm, India has almost the same at 1.57Mkm and Russia 655,000km, the study showed. In railroads, Brazil has 29,000km, Russia 87,000km, China 77,000km and India 63,000km. Brazil's growth acceleration plan known as PAC implicitly recognizes the country's sharp deficit in the areas of transport infrastructure, water and sanitation, among others. But the efficacy of the PAC has yet to be proven, with many of the projects delayed, and many others basically being rehashes of works that were already under way or planned. The good news is that the FIFA World Cup and the Rio de Janeiro Olympics could provide that extra push for Brazil to realize the full potential of the PAC, and get the projects completed on time. In this sense, the announcement by Brazil's presidential chief-of-staff Dilma Rousseff that the federal government is considering creating new PAC projects specifically for the World Cup and the Olympics is welcome news - if it materializes. Fonte: de David Roberts para Business News Americas