Brazil_and_Italy_Business_Environments

Brazil and Italy Business Environments Brazil Overview Capital City: Brasilia Principle Language: Portuguese Population: 151 million people Area: 3.3 million square miles Population Density per mile: 46.1 Natural Population Growth: 2.0% Currency: Cruzerio Exchange Rate (as of 4/11/97) $1.00 = 1.0640 (Moody’s 1077) Economy Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world and boasts the tenth largest economy. In 1994 the economy was US $536,309m which equals a per capita GDP of 3,370. Between 1985 and 1994 per capita GDP decreased by 0.4% this is due to the rapid population expansion of approximately 2% per year. During the same time period the real GDP increased by 2.1% and by 5.8% in 1994.(Europa 637) Fernanado Henrique Cordoso has brought inflation down to 1% a month or 12% a year. Prior to his election inflation sometimes reached upwards of 1000% a year.(Lomheim) Industry is the largest component of GDP. It accounted for 34% of GDP and 23% of the labor force in 1994. This area has had an average GDP increase of only 0.7% during the period between 1980 to 1993. Agriculture which includes hunting, fishing, and forestry contributed 13.1% of GDP italy, government, brazil, tax, 1994, per, firm, year, rate, largest, due, years, inflation, 1993, workforce, two, system, pw, problems, president, political, manufacturing, major, italian, europa, country, corporations, between, been, trade, total, states, products, open, million, industry, however, goods, foreign, federal, european, during, very, united, union, under, percent, over