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 Guido Mantega, the Brazilian Finance Minister, said that "for the moment" there's no reason to change Brazil's growth estimate of 5% for 2008, in spite of global recession fears, which he believes will impact most on developed countries.
"There's nothing telling us we should abandon our optimism," stated Mantega during a meeting with the press in Paris where he is holding talks with top officials from the French government.
When asked about the fact that the Brazilian Central Bank estimate is 4.5% GDP expansion in 2008, Mantega reiterated that for 2008 "the government's estimate is 5%" and added that the Central Bank can be "more conservative" but for the Executive as long as new elements don't emerge "we keep to our estimates."
Mantega admitted that there was a slowdown of the world economy which is affecting mainly the rich countries but which "should not have a great impact" for emerging economies such as Brazil. And if they suffer "it will only be marginally."
"This crisis is showing the importance of emerging economies for the world" since they are helping compensate the deceleration in developed countries, he pointed out emphasizing "that is one of the main reasons why emerging countries should have a louder voice in decision making processes in such organizations as the G7 or the IMF".
Mantega said that the latest manufacturing data from the state of São Paulo, the power horse of Brazil, showed a solid growth of 6.1% in the last twelve months to December compared to the same period in 2006, even when December experienced a minor seasonal adjustment of minus 1.3% when comparted to last November.
Data released by São Paulo's Federation of Industries, FIESP, indicates that the 6.1% manufacturing expansion of 2007 was the highest since 2004, and was double the rate of 2006, 3%. FIESP said they had originally forecasted a 5% growth.
"In 2007 the domestic market expanded far more than expected given higher employment and greater take-home pay checks. Credit also expanded reaching a record 35% of GDP," explained Walter Sacca, deputy head of FIESP Economics department and a member of the visiting delegation.
"2008 has begun strongly, with industry investing and hiring more people. Manufacturing activity in São Paulo should grow in the range of 5%," said Sacca.
According to FIESP, São Paulo's manufacturing utilization capacity reached 81.9% in December, compared to 84.1% in November and 77.8% in December 2006.
Mercopress
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The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj).
Where in the hell are emerging economies going to sell their products and services if not to the so called first world countries or does he think that Argentina, Mozambique Angola etc are going to pick up the slack? He's a complete a*****e............!!!!