Bloomberg reports that Brazil’s retail sales rose more than expected in May.  2008 was a record year in Brazil, yet retail sales rose 4% compared to May 2008 and it rose 0,8% compared to the previous month April 2009 (the expectation was a 0,4% increase).    The raising Brazilian middle class and Brazil’s huge internal market is fueling it’s resiliance in this crisis.

Economists are again revising Brazil’s GDP growth upwards.  This news will probably have the central bank incline to a further decrease of the SELIC intrest rate.  Estimates they will lower the rate from the current 9,25% to 8,75% on July 22.

Last week, the Brazilian central bank announced that the country’s foreign exchange resreves have reached a record high of 209,5 billion US$.

The target of the Brazilian central bank is to further expand their foreign reserves to 300 billion US$.

Quote:
“Niall Ferguson on California: It is a Latin American economy that just happens to be in the U.S.”
Paul Kedrosky has a point, the situation in California is truly catastropic; try sorting the situation yourselve.
Wells Fargo is putting up deadlines, yet no solutions are at hand with the massive job-losses; the US has lost as many jobs now as all the jobs together that were created the last nine years.

While in most countries the economy is collapsing at an unseen speed and the governments have no idea how to plug the massive holes in the budgets, the Brazilian government is studying a plan to lower the contribution of employer’s social contribution from 20 to 15%.  Which will be surely an incentive to hire even more people.

That being said, the unemployment in Brazil isn’t increasing and amounts now 8,9%,  as you can see here.

Read more on the plans of the government on Globo.

Nielsena dn IBGE just updated the number of Internet users throughout the world.
Brazil now has 62,3 million people on the Internet.  That is more people using the Internet than in France or the UK.

And we have seen what happens when those 62,3 million Brazilians raise their voice on June 28th.

With 33% of the population online, Brazil still has plenty of growth potential ahead.  I’ll give you a stock recommendation in this context next week, after I bought in some extra myself.

The Brazilian middle class keeps growing
Globo reports on the contuing strong growth of the Brazilian middle class.
In between 2006 and 2007, the Class C population grew very strong (10% growth). In 2008 it remained more or less stable on 45% of the population.

Today the absolute numbers are:

> The richest classes A and B grew from 28,08 million to 29,4 million people in 2008.
> Class C now has 84,6 million people
> The poorest classes D and E went slightly up from 72,9 to 75,8 million people

In 2008, the family income of all Brazilian people went up 11%.

> The people in the richest class A and B saw there income go up with 16,5%; the average income per person of the two classes went up from R$ 2.217 to R$ 2.588.
> The income of the people of class C went up 13%, the average grew from R$ 1.062 to R$ 1.201
> The income of the people of class D and E grew the least (12%) and went up from R$ 580 to R$ 650.

The Economist is digging up again the concept of decoupling and calls it “decoupling 2.0″; read more here.

While car sales are in a slump worldwide, Brazians bought last June more cars than any previous month in history.  300.174 cars left the showroom last month.  That is an increase of 21,5% compared to May 2009 and 17,2% higher than June 2008.  Total car sales in the first half year totalled 1,45 million, that is 3% more than in the first half of 2008 and a new record (2008 was already a record year).   Total car sales for 2009 will highly likeable exceed 3 million in Brazil this year.

Auto sales in the first half of the year totaled 1.45 million, up 3% from the year before and a record for the period.

Also General Motors broke a record in Brazil last month.  The company sold a record 55.629 vehicles last month, it’s hightes figure in the company’s 84-year history in Brazil.  GM in the United States is in bankrupcy proceedsings, but its Brazil subsidiary is doing better then ever.

Last February we wrote extensively on the extreme innovations happening at General Motors Brazil, one of, if not the most modern plant of General Motors in the world.

Contrary to Belgium, Brazil is already covered with high-quality satelite images on Google Maps/Earth.  Now Google announced that also Google Streetview is coming to Brazil.  You can follow it here on the Fiat Google Streetview partnership site.
Of course the privacy debate also lightened  up in Brazil, but Carlos Ximenes of Google Brasil guarantees that the same software will be used as in France, where number plates of cars will be barred.  On top of that the Brazilian system will allow users to immediately delete a screen-raster when privacy issues exist.

Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte (the home of Google Brazil) and Rio de Janeiro are the first cities to be covered.  Truly hope Florianopolis will also be added to the list.

Marc Faber, the author of Gloomboomdoom on Brazil in his report of July 1st:

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Brazil has risen by one level this year to the eight position in the list of fastest retail development growth emerging markets. The study lists 30 nations and take into account items as political and macroeconomic risk, market attractiveness, retail expansion,…

“Brazil continues to be the most attractive option for retailers internationally,” the study said. “With a larger population and the strongest economy in Latin America, the country should recover from recession more quickly.”

While in Belgium Carrefour is struggling for surival, it will open 70 new stores in Brazil thius year.  Wall Mart will open 100 new stores and local Pao de Acucar will open 100 new stores.
When you in Brazil you should really take the time to visit ba flagship store of Pao de Acucar.