Brazil's consuming desire for status

1 ANSWERS

1. Brett
   

   Back in the late 1990s, Brazil's Pao de Acucar supermarket chain relaunched itself with a slogan that still speaks volumes about the country's aspirations to be a global power.
   
   Brazilian supermarket
   Even supermarkets bear witness to Brazil's hunger for acceptance
   
   Henceforth, the company said, its biggest outlets, mainly in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, would be "supermarkets worthy of the First World".
   
   This turned out to mean that they were open 24 hours a day, six days a week (the exception being Sunday, the day when you are most likely to run short of groceries).
   
   In fact, the one thing that was really reminiscent of the developed world was Pao de Acucar's pricing policy. Local corner shops were often considerably cheaper.
   
   But the glamour of the "First World" pledge appealed to middle-class consumers with money to burn.
   
   It caught the mood of a country that was busy burying its legacy of military rule and hyperinflation, while looking for a new role on the world stage.
   
   Image issues
   
   More than a decade later, Brazil has found that role as one of the Bric countries, grouped together in a handy acronym with Russia, India and China as one of the world's biggest emerging economies.
   
   However, the Brics all want to do different things with their greater economic clout - assuming, that is, they survive the global recession in relatively good condition.
   
   For Russia and China, secure in their status as members of the UN Security Council, it offers another way of fending off outsiders' attempts to intervene in their internal affairs.
   
   Lula in London after the G20 summit
   Lula is still making an impact on the world stage
   
   Brazil, which continues to dream of a Security Council seat, is much more sensitive to concerns about how it is perceived abroad.
   
   But given the international attention currently being lavished on Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, no-one can accuse him of not doing his bit to uphold the country's prestige.
   
   At the G20 summit in London, no less a luminary than US President Barack Obama described his Brazilian counterpart as "the most popular politician on Earth".
   
   And although Brazil has had its share of assistance from the International Monetary Fund in the past, Lula came away from the G20 gathering determined to position his country as an IMF creditor, not a debtor.
   
   According to the Brazilian financial press, Lula is prepared to commit $10bn to the IMF - a full 5% of Brazil's international reserves.
   
   The same Brazilian press jubilantly points out that China allocated a mere 2% of its international reserves to support the IMF expansion agreed at the summit, although that amounted to $40bn.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 8 month(s) ago