Political Organization:

• Federative Republic with 26 states and Federal District
• Independent Judiciary with three levels
• Supreme Court appointed by President, need Senate approval
• Congress with Senate and House (81/513)
• Elected Governors and Houses
• Elected Mayors and Councils
• Labor laws dating of 1939
• Ministry of Labor / Special Labor Courts
• Tough legislation on environment and sweat-labor

Brazil numbers in a nutshell:

• Population: 192 million (80% urban)
• GNP: US$ 1.5 trillion
• GNP growth in 2007: 5.4 % - 2008 (est.): 5%
• FDI 2008: US$ 45 billion
• Inflation under control 200: 4.31%
• Exports 2008: US$ 198 billion
• Currency reserves are over US$241 billion and external debt of 50% of reserves
• Investment grade rating

Infrastructure:

• Comprehensive telecom network offers country-wide access
• 170 million mobile phones in operation in the end of 2009
• 15 million broadband accesses (2009)
• Fast air access to Europe and North America (9-12 hours flights)
• Brazil has the world´s second largest private aviation fleet
• Federal and state highway system covers the whole country growth assured through private concessions
• Efficient domestic post office system, most major fast delivery operators present (UPS, Fedex, etc)

Educational System:

• 9-year Elementary school today reaches 100% of population
• High-school: 3 years
• Technical schools: with 1 more year, ready to enter in the IT job market
• Technical schools and universities form 246,000 IT-related professionals per year
• 111 post-graduate IT-related courses
• 2,270 federal, state and private universities, with 5.8 million students
• More than 250 new public technical schools will be created by the end of 2010

IT Market:

• IT-GNP of over US$ 20.6 billion (IDC, 2007)
• US$ 9.0 billion in services
• 15% growth in 2004-2005, 25% in 2006-2007
• Competitive services market: Accenture, Atos Origin, BRQ, BT, Cast, CPM Braxis, Datasul, DTS, EDS, GPTI, GFT, HSBC, Hughes, IBM, Intel, Itautec, Microsoft, Politec, Promon, Satyam, Softtek, Siemens, Stefanini, Sun, TCS, Tivit, Totvs, Virtus, Ubik, Unisys
• Local PC makers have outperformed traditional manufactures like HP, Dell, Acer, with strong sales, support organization and competitive prices
• Highly experienced IT professionals
• IT professionals: more than 1.7 million
• Intensive use of different platforms, Mainframe, Unix, Linux, .Net, Java, Oracle, SAP, Natural Adabas
• Brazil ranks second (after USA) in world?s mainframe population, with an experienced pool of COBOL professionals
• Brazil is leader in Java programmers, with several JUGs and has the largest JUG in the world (18,000 members, IDC)
• Labor pool developed from a business-technology approach, with deep industry knowledge

Advantages:

• Industry knowledge
• Cultural compatibility
• Strong and diversified internal IT market
• Favorable time-zone
• Absence of natural disasters
• No ethnical or terrorism problems
• Western and democratic legal system
• Political and economical stability
• 45 years of IT investments

National IT Program (results in three years):

• US$ 5 billion in exports
• 100,000 new professionals
• Federal Incentives:
  
  • 10% reduction on labor charges
  • 3.1% reduction on contributions to the "S System"
  • Income tax reduction for education and innovation in R&D

• Local Incentives:
  • Facilities and infrastructure
  • Local tax incentives

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