CONFIDENCE IS HIGH AS NEW ERA BEGINS
Under the guidance of a new and popular President, Brazil is now serving notice that after decades in the wilderness it is now firmly back on the path to growth and prosperity. And this time all will benefit under the President’s plans.

Brazil’s first working class President aims to dramatically increase the distribution of wealth beyond the cities

Let’s face it – the world is pulling for President Lula. With his uncanny ability to cut to the quick of complex social and political issues, Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva has presented a black and white perspective on social change that the majority of us have always, at least secretly, suspected was not the impossibility that our politicians have assured us it was. The practical and common sense approach of Brazil’s new President to the concepts of fair and equal has endeared him to a public that extends far beyond the borders of his own country, and quite possibly represents the face of a new global leadership. That this political vanguard is also stemming from the world’s fifth largest country, representing a population of 170 million people and Latin America’s leading economic power, sends a clear message: keep an eye on Brazil.

“We had a presidential election in which hope triumphed over fear – the hope of changing Brazil in a responsible and secure way, overcoming economic difficulties and promoting social inclusion,” says Senator Aloízio Mercadante of the Brazilian State of São Paulo. President Lula’s election in October 2002 was a watershed event in Brazilian history as the country elected for the first time a president who was neither a member of the country’s wealthy elites nor its military, but a member of the working class who swore that all Brazilians would have access to three meals a day by the end of his term, a social program that came to be known as Zero Hunger. Once in office, President Lula also defied his critics’ expectations by continuing the strong fiscal and economic reforms established by the previous Cardoso administration. Armando Monteiro Neto, President of Brazil’s National Confederation of Industry states, “The government has maintained the fundamentals of a responsible macroeconomic policy and demonstrated a great determination and firmness in fiscal austerity, discipline, and complete rigor.”

In typical Lula fashion, the President took a commercial flight on an official visit to Europe last year, and attended both the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, and the World Social Forum – an event created in opposition to much of what the World Economic Forum stands for. Walking firmly and confidently through the battlefields of world globalization and social inequality, President Lula continues to insist that there must be a fair balance.

Building Alternative partnerships
Demonstrating President Lula’s astute political ambitions, Brazil has recently signed a “framework agreement” with India and South Africa to expand and intensify political cooperation and trade.

Brazil is seeking to unite the cause of developing countries at international trade talks and forums. In what it sees as a positive contribution to the world economy the agreement will bring together a developing market of 1.2 billion people and wield considerable influence.