Samantha Pearson – The Financial Times (blog), 07/18/2012
After Brazil’s disastrous retail sales data last week, no wonder that some have started to question the country’s supposed “two-speed” model of growth.
If the consumer boom is now faltering as well as headline growth, perhaps Brazil is simply destined to be a “no-speed” economy instead? However two studies this week have suggested that Brazil continues to be distinctly bipolar.
On Monday, Grant Thornton’s International Business Report showed that confidence among Brazil’s business community is plunging. In the first three months of the year, Brazilians were ranked as the second-most optimistic in the world about the course of their own economy over the next twelve months. However, by the second quarter, they had already fallen to eighth place (Peru came first).
