Politicians and the Government helping Investment in Brazil Rise

As the European domination spread northwards and westwards, governance changed as the scale of the dominion expanded. The local Amerindian populations were dominated, intermarried with, enslaved and dispossessed and to them were added the large numbers of African slaves brought in to the country to work on the white-owned farms and plantations. The Brazilian economy was taking off, although not of course on foundations any 21st century democrat would approve of. Nearly two hundred years ago, in 1822, Brazil provided a refuge for an exiled branch of the Portuguese royal family under Prince Pedro, the son of King John. The country formally became an independent empire under him and his successors as Emperor, which it remained for most of the nineteenth century until 1889. At that point there was a coup led by the military to establish an authoritarian type of 'republic'. This nominal structure, interspersed with dictatorships, lasted on and off in different forms for nearly a century.

More or less democratic elections were held for the first time in 1985. Since then there have been numerous parties and coalitions providing a number of different governments, nearly all of them compromises between many different factions. Broadly speaking, though most of the numerous parties can be said to fall into one or the other of two broad groups, internationally-oriented 'liberals' who hold that the country must be part of the wider world economy and nationalistic 'statists' who believe in state intervention in industry and commerce.

The commentator Ridenti has quoted the Cardoso Government as an example of the former, while the most recent Workers Party-led governments of 'Lula' da Silva or Dilma Rousseff represent the latter. However, these are broad brush-stroke classifications at best and elements of both do actually exist within either, although the proportions are different. At national level, the Government of Brazil has two Houses, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The third branch of administration, the so-called Executive is provided by the President and the members of the Cabinet. However, as a Federal Republic, there is a regional tier of government provided by the twenty-six states and their administrations plus an autonomous Federal District around the capital, Brasilia.

Finally there is the most 'local' manifestation of government and politics, the municipal level, comprising the mayors and councils running the towns and cities (no real legal distinction between the two). These three layers of government do have frictions and problems between them but generally speaking the interaction between the levels runs reasonably well. Each has its laid-out responsibilities, constitutions, budgets and laws and each can have an important effect on investment in Brazil, both domestic and international

A highly respected Investment NewsWebsite is predicting that investments in Brazil will double over the next 12 Months, Many of these investments will be in the governments own Minha Casa Minha Vida Social Housing programme.