Brazil’s government just launched its R$ 200 note while the Central Bank hints about a possibility of a digital currency.
Read MoreBrazil’s financial paradox: where cash is king and digital currency rumors
Category: Brazil
How Covid-19 helped decrease the unbanked population in Brazil
The Brazilian government announced a financial support scheme aimed at self-employed and informal workers that had their incomes affected by the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis. Brazil has a large population of informal workers: those who work cash-in-hand jobs, with no formal work contract. They are mostly unskilled or semi-skilled workers eg. street vendors, service providers like cleaning and home repairs. The financial support will come from state owned bank Caixa Economica Federal. Individuals under the scheme criteria have to open an account with Caixa to receive its benefits. The process is…
Read MoreOpinion: will local brands dominate emerging markets?
The global market of consumer packaged goods is US$ 1.2 trillion and global brands are facing strong competition from local brands in emerging markets. And what’s the global companies’ strategy to remain in relevant in emerging markets? They act fast to acquire these established and already much profitable local brands. In India, for example, the government policy from the invasion of foreign brands made local brand Thumbs Up cola the country’s market leader. In the early 90’s, when the Indian government opened the market to multinationals, Coca-Cola was more than quick…
Read MoreLatin America: 3 platforms changing the crowdfunding game
Here are 3 of Latin America’s biggest platforms running in the upfront of the crowdfunding game.
Read MoreBrazil struggles to find a route to competitiveness
Why is everything so expensive in Brazil? I’m Brazilian and lived there most of my life and never understood it – until I came across this article by the Economist. Some of the main reasons are high taxation combined with a lack of competitiveness – the Brazilian Real ranks in 3rd place of most depreciated against the dollar in 2018, just behind the Venezuelan Bolivar. Not good news, not good news for Brazilians at all. According to a study by the Federation of Industries of São Paulo (Fiesp), a product manufactured in…
Read MoreHow China and Brazil are investing in Africa
After the economic slow-down, inflation and recession – and perhaps, some most pessimistic might say, the eminent down-fall of BRICS, all eyes turn to Africa as the new best thing regarding investments. Brazil and China have already been investing heavily in Africa, but how and where these two countries are investing in the African continent are strikingly different. China has been investing in infrastructural development such as, building highways in Tanzania, financing electricity projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and constructing whole towns in Angola. Most recently, Ethiopia made the headlines as the first African Sub-Saharan…
Read MoreHow urban farmers are revitalizing deprived areas of Brazil
São Paulo is a megalopolis with around 19 million inhabitants. Unsurprisingly, the city struggles to cope with the urban mobility issues caused by 7 million cars and poor public transport infrastructure. The real estate speculation made the city grow astronomically fast, without the necessary diligence towards urban planning; there are only a few parks and the lack of contact with nature and green areas is very apparent. Very few have caught onto urban agriculture. Even with its many problems there are hardly any initiatives, a handful at best are dotted around…
Read MoreHow women became the top entrepreneurs in Brazil’s slums
In one of my previous posts about the Brazil slums – Favela Rising – I talked about how resourceful someone has to be in the favelas (slums). That is exactly what I meant by the entrepreneurial spirit. But, what does it take for someone to be an entrepreneur in the most deprived parts of the country? According to a study from Data Popular in partnership with CUFA (Central Unica das Favelas), found that 29% of favela residents said the main reason to become an entrepreneur was the possibility to be…
Read MoreWhatsApp skewed Brazilian election, proving social media’s danger to democracy
Misinformation via social media played a troubling role in boosting far-right Congressman Jair Bolsonaro to into the Brazilian presidency. Bolsonaro did not win 55 percent of votes thanks to misinformation alone. A powerful desire for political change in Brazil after a yearslong corruption scandal and a court decision compelling the jailed front-runner Luis Inacio Lula da Silva to withdraw from the race both opened the door wide for his win. But Bolsonaro’s candidacy benefited from a powerful and coordinated disinformation campaign intended to discredit his rivals, according to the Brazilian…
Read MoreSolar Energy in Social Housing, a Discarded Solution in Brazil
The social housing complexes of Morada do Salitre and Praia do Rodeadouro (main photo), with solar panels on their rooftops, make up a village of 1,000 families on the outskirts of the city of Juazeiro, in the Brazilian state of Bahia. A solar energy project, which has been suspended, created jobs for local residents to plant trees and clean the streets. JUAZEIRO, Northeastern Brazil – “Our main challenge is to get the project back on track,” agreed the administrators of two affordable housing complexes, where a small solar power plant was…
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