The Minha Casa Minha Vida Programme Expands to the Southern States

The city of Canoas is part of the wider Porto Alegre built-up area. It's in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. As its name suggests, this large municipality of about a third of a million people has maritime links and of course is in the southern coastal region of the country. Its precise location is at Lat 29.9 S., Long 51.2 W. Canoas is at the inland end of the Baia de Guaiba, an inlet of the South Atlantic Ocean which stretches over 100 Km into the country. Both Porto Alegre itself and of course Canoas are both on the eastern side of the bay. In terms of its distance from other centres in Brazil, Canoas is 1,600 Km from Brasilia, 1,100 Km from Rio de Janiero and 2.300 from Salvador.

Although there has been a settlement of some sort there for well over two and a half centuries, Canoas only became an official city in 1939, just before world war two. Many people do not realise, by the way, that Brazil fought in the war on the Allied side and her forces sustained many casualties in the Italian campaign.In the early years and centuries, the settlement of Canoas grew only slowly and it was still just a village until well into the 1870's. Then it gradually evolved into a market town at about the turn of the 19th century. From then the pace picked up enormously, especially from about 1950 onwards. Even then, until only a couple of decades ago Canoas was regarded as just a sort of dormitory suburb to the north of Porto Alegre, albeit a very large one. But nowadays it's more a case of the shoe being on the other foot, as Porto Alegre's own industry and employment base has declined so much while Canoas's has increased. In fact, manufacturing industry now forms the backbone of the local economy, together with the large Air Force base also in the city area. There is also a large Petrobras oil refinery which also has links to other petrochemical plants in the region.. Important local industries also include chemicals, pharmaceuticals and glass products. In addition to these there are several sizeable meat processing and packing plants. There are good local connections to neighbouring towns and cities in the wider economic area. Altogether, Canoas nowadays has a larger per-person GDP than Porto Alegre. Higher education features prominently in the life of Canoas. Local establishments include the famous 'Ulbra', the Lutheran University of Brazil plus of course Centro Universitário Ritter dos Reis.

The wider culture of Rio Grande do Sul obviously interacts with that of Canoes itself. Music for example is very varied, including elements from the adjacent Spanish-speaking countries of Uruguay and Argentina. Local consumption of chimarrao is popular. This is a regional version of the tea-like mate (pronounced 'mar-tey') drunk in Argentina. Meat products, ('jerky' types and also higher quality cuts) are very common due to the plentiful sources of good meat available locally.The climate of the region is generally humid and sub-tropical.

This expansion of the Minha Casa Minha Vida Brazil housing programme has been an amazing financial boost for Brazil with the whole country quickly becoming an investment hotspot. Property investors are currently receiving 20% ROI after just 12 month thanks to the programme making investing in Brazil, safe, secure and very profitable