Heads and Tails

Brazil’s wounds have been largely exposed over the past couple of years. The nation went straight from the daydream of the BRICS heydays into the vexing realization of its having played the role of the cicada in Aesop’s fable. Once acclaimed social programs ultimately crumbled to the ground by means of demagogy, incompetence and theft and so did the economy as a whole.

Yet not all is reason for shame. While Brazil’s emergence may have been delayed for years, impunity gradually becomes a thing of the past. In other terms, venom is the very raw material of its antidote. As evidence of illicit behavior increases the odds of the government’s constitutional stand down, an otherwise downward market is instantly lifted up, with a surge in both the stock exchange and the currency.

If on one hand crisis introduces investment bargains and new opportunities in the territory, it also promotes the awakening of local businesses which have been long neglecting the global market in favor of a frantic domestic demand. After all the Real was over valuated, compromising the competitiveness of Brazilian exports. Now the tables are turned and making up for lost ground is neither easy nor inexpensive.

Years of policies for economic growth solely anchored on consumption have sadly impaired some manufacturing segments which will now need time to recover. Still there is so much more to the Brazilian production range. Agriculture for one has been breaking successive records with practically unlimited space for growth. Cattle-raising is number one in the world. Forestry, mining, water and energy are of equally monumental potential. Clean and creative industries as well as services, just to name a few, are other niches of great interest.

Over time the obsolete concept of foreign trade gave way to international business. Exports were replaced by partnerships. Nowadays assessing new markets requires more than ever knowledge and planning, developing durable relationships, understanding the culture and reaching out to one’s counterpart based in the principle of mutual benefit.

Acting globally is no spot business. Instead it requires patience and consistency to get due rewards. Some players will need to update strategies previously customary. Newcomers should in turn refrain from the inclination to immediacy. Even in the aftermath of a disaster there is much that can be achieved.

There will always be saturated markets in search of new challenges just as friendly regions that will welcome dependable associates. Let’s roll our sleeves up then.