Brazil-Economic and political outline

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Published: 06 Oct 2008 17:35:49 PST

Economic indicators

GDP Indicators	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
GDP (billions USD)	663.552	882.043	1067.706	1295.355	1450.011
GDP (constant prices, annual % change)	5.7	2.9	3.7	4.4	4
GDP per capita (USD)	3654.202	4788.917	5716.674	6841.6	7557.269
General government balance (in % of GDP)
Inflation rate (%)	6.6	6.9	4.2	3.6	3.9
Unemployment rate (% of the labor force)	9.1	9.1
Current Account (billions USD)	9.1	9.1
Current Account (in % of GDP)	11.679	14.193	13.276	10.253	4.299

Source: IMF - World Economic Outlook Database

Note: (e) Estimated data

Breakdown of economic activity by sector	Agriculture	Industry	Services
Value added (annual % change)	2.315441	7.850695	5
Value added (in % of GDP)		30.11	62.97
Employment by sector(in % of total employment)	19.8%	21.6%	58.4%

Source: - last available data.

Foreign Trade in figures

Foreign trade indicators	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
Imports of goods (millions USD)	47240.49	48290.22	62809.04	73551.42
Exports of goods (millions USD)	60361.79	73084.14	96475.22	118308.3
Imports of services (millions USD)	14508.55	15378.15	17260.23	24242.91
Exports of services (millions USD)	9551.362	10447.05	12583.56	16094.98
Imports of goods and services (annual % change)	-11.88807	-1.564611	14.39764	9.339964	18.06974
Exports of goods and services (annual % change)	7.417867	10.39664	15.29483	10.10159	4.649565
Trade Balance (millions USD)	13121.3	24793.92	33666.18	44756.85
Current Account (millions USD)	-7636.63	4177.288	11737.6	14199.3
Foreign trade (in % of GDP)	26.6796	27.06212	28.97319	26.66373	27.06212
Imports of goods and services (in % of GDP)	12.58298	12.07519	12.54815	11.53536	11.71676
Exports of goods and services (in % of GDP)	14.09662	14.98693	16.42505	15.12837	14.655

Source:

To see more products: More imports (Intracen Data)
More exports (Intracen Data)

Sources of economic information

Economic Organizations: Brazilian statistics institute
Central Bank
Rio de Janeiro Stock Exchange
São Paulo Stock Exchange
Ministries: Ministry of Agriculture and Reserves (MA)
Ministry of Foreign Relations (MRE)
Institute for Mine development (INDI)
Online newspapers: Folha de São Paulo
Estado de São Paulo
Jornal do Brasil
On-line economic journal
Jornal do Commercio
Search Engines: Yahoo! Brazil
Aonde
Achei
Lycos Brazil
MSN Search Brazil
RadarUOL
Altavista
Terra
Economic portals

Political outline

Executive Power: The president is both Head of State and Head of the Government; he holds executive power. He (and the vice-president) is elected by universal suffrage for a four year term. He appoints the Council of Ministers.
Legislative Power: The legislative power is bicameral. The parliament, called National Congress, is made up of two houses: the Senate (upper house), which has 81 members (3 members for each of the 26 provinces and for the federal district, elected according to the majority principle, for an 8 year term) ; and the Chamber of Deputies (lower house), which has 513 seats (and whose members are elected by proportional representation for a four year term). Each of the 26 States, and the federal district of Brazilia, has a separate legislature and administration. Brazilians enjoy considerable political rights.
Main political parties: Fifteen political parties are represented in the National Congress. As it frequently happens that a politician changes parties, the proportion of seats of a given party in Congress changes regularly. The main political parties are as follows:
- The PT (Workers' Party, center-left)
- The PFL (Liberal Front Party, right-wing)
- The PMDB(Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, center)
- The PSDB (Brazilian Social Democratic Party, center-left)
- The PCdoB ( Brazilian Communist Party, left-wing)
Current political leaders: President : Luiz Inacio LULA DA SILVA (since 1 January 2003) PT, leading a coalition government
Vice President : Jose ALENCAR (since 1 January 2003) - PT
Next election dates: Presidential and legislative elections: October 2010
Senate : October 2010 (for 1/3 of the members)