Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: A15, European College of Business and Management (ECBM) London, language: English, abstract: 1. Brazil today In the mainstream European media world Brazil´s economy is rarely a topic though experts consider Brazil as the country with the best chances among the emerging BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) states. The presidents Cardoso and his successor Lula de Silva have stabilized the country and led it into bright and better future - due their reforms inflation rates have slowed to around 5% in the recent years from dizzying 15% in 2003 and since then the currency very much stabilized, economical growth maximised to a status of which western nations only can dream of (an average of around 5% each year since 2004) and brought more people than ever for the first time into the consumer market by growing formal jobs. Furthermore credit laws have changed in a way which boosts & encourages the banking sector to become active on the consumer mass market. All these facts function like an admission ticket to the modern economy, but the big question is: Where are the exact chances for good business investments in the near future. But before actually looking into the investment opportunities linked to the further development of Brazil, first let´s take a look at the demographics: When comparing population figures from the Brazilian statistical office quoted by the German statistical office (Destatis 2006, n.p.) directly with western countries one can clearly see that the majority of the Brazilians (65%+) are in the working age between 15 and 64. Only around 5% of the population is in the age of 65+. Having a look at Germany for example, this age group forms approximately 20% of the whole German population. The GDP per capita is at the moment at roughly 8.000 $ with an increase each year since 2002 according to the Deutsche Bank (Busch 2009, p.250). Only in the recent credit crunch crisis, which had its origin in the USA, Brazil was not able to manage a growth (like no country else in the world). However Brazil was/is much lesser affected by the crisis as other countries, due to the fact that it is mainly autonomous in its resources and that trade connections with the USA are the minority. So overall one can say by only looking at these outlines of Brazilian economy & demographics that Brazil as a country, the Brazilians as a population and the businesses in this country have a lot of potential for future development. 2. Investing in the next billion consumers 3. Future development & investment in infrastructure and the energy sector 4.