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Overseas property investors have been encouraged to consider purchasing a residence in Brazil.

The South American country was recommended by the Times, which said it offers a better investment climate than places such as the UK.

According to the newspaper, foreign buyers spent nearly £370 million on property in Brazil last year.

Nearly a tenth of these were said to be British, although it added that the market is largely dominated by Americans, Italians and Spaniards.

The publication cited Brazil's natural attributes, such as its good beaches and sunshine, as a reason for its current popularity with foreign buyers.

However, it stated that the potential to make money from any investment is also drawing many people to the country.

The Times commented: "With Brazil getting ready to host the World Cup in 2014, investors may also expect reasonable returns."

Although Brazil has only staged the World Cup once before, it is the most successful participant in the competition, as it

INTERNATIONAL investors have grown less excited recently about emerging markets. But despite all the talk about the “decoupling” them from America’s economy, it turns out that when America has a cold, the rest of the world still sneezes—even if, thanks to the emergence of new sources of demand outside America, it does not get quite as sick as it did. As economic growth has slowed, share prices have tumbled in each of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) stockmarkets, though they are all well up on what they were in late 2001, when Goldman Sachs invented the acronym.

Of those four, investors are most bullish on Brazil—despite its economy’s history of tanking at the very moment that international investors regain their confidence in it (which, on past form, would be just about now). Brazilian shares may be down by 16% this year in local-currency terms (and 10% in dollars), but they are still worth four times what they were five years ago.

Arjun Divecha, an emerging-markets guru at GMO, an investment firm, thinks the inflation hawks who run Brazil’s economic policy make it especially attractive, despite its reliance on oil and other commodities, which are slipping from their recent highs. This has helped make the real one of the world’s strongest currencies, turning conventional economic wisdom on its head. “Real interest rates have been very high, and will start to come down, which will stimulate a lot of domestic consumption,” Mr Divecha says.

And domestic growth is becoming the important emerging-market story: hundreds of millions of people are earning enough to let them rapidly accumulate higher-value consumer goods, from cars to computers. There may be no clearer example of this than the Brazilian residential property market.

José Paim de Andrade, who founded a Brazilian real-estate investment firm called Maxcap in 2002, could hardly have been more bullish when he visited The Economist in New York last week. He reckons that the housing boom will continue for five to seven years, as the rapid increase in incomes leads to widespread residential upgrading.

The property market has changed dramatically since 1997, when Mr Paim de Andrade led the first initial public offering of a Brazilian housebuilder (Rossi Residencial). Today, he notes that there are 31 real-estate companies listed on the Brazilian market. Brazilian homebuilders have a combined market capitalisation of around $20 billion, the same as that of publicly traded American homebuilders, a statistic that says a great deal about the shifting balance of economic power from the developed to developing world.

So much foreign money has flooded the market that “capital has become a commodity in Brazilian real estate”, he says, and there has been a bubble in the shares that is now starting to burst. He expects consolidation, as some of the firms that went public during the bubble just because they could get taken over.

But a bubble in real-estate shares is not the same as a bubble in real estate, insists Mr Paim de Andrade, even though house prices have doubled in the past five years. The mortgage market has only just begun(it did not exist in 1997) and mortgages are being provided by big retail banks who retain an ownership stake in them, rather than securitise them as in America. Interest rates have fallen from around 16% three or four years ago; loan periods have grown from 12 to 30 years; and salaries have soared.

Around 70% of Brazilians own their own homes, but many of these (around 85%, Mr Paim de Andrade estimates) are self-built one room at a time, and are of low quality. Much of the boom is about people moving to new and better properties, which is why building is taking place all over the country. One of Maxcap’s recent investments involved the launch of a 500-apartment complex in a northern Brazilian city. The apartments are priced at $200,000 to $600,000, which is high-end there. Three-quarters of them in the first month.

As goes residential housing, so goes the rest of the higher-value consumer goods market, investors hope—after all, those new homes need to be decorated.

Sam Zell, an American real estate billionaire, has invested heavily in Brazilian property, with stakes in four real-estate companies there. Gary Garrabrant, who runs his international-property business, Equity International, says that “Sam Zell and I have an agreement that we will stop promoting Brazil—but we love it in an expansive way.” In particular, he points to the institutionalisation of sound macroeconomic policy, the growth of lively and well-capitalised public- and private-equity markets, and an abundance of “local management talent in Brazil that is head and shoulders above every other emerging market.”

Mr Garrabrant says that after decades of struggling with a bad government, weak currency, high interest rates and the absence of intelligent debt, “Brazil has crossed over. It can’t go back.” We have heard this before. Fingers crossed that this time will be different.

Tourism officials in Brazil have predicted that the number of foreign visitors will go up this year, it has been reported.

According to Brazzil Mag, the Brazilian Travel Agency Association is expecting tourist numbers to go up by ten per cent in 2008.

However, the organisation stated that current exchange rates are leading to a reduction in the number of "low income" visitors entering the country.

Commenting on this development, spokesperson Leonel Rossi expressed little concern, saying the drop is "not very high".

Nevertheless, he called for efforts to market the South American nation overseas to be stepped up.

Mr Rossi commented: "There needs to be greater advertisement for Brazil abroad".

Official data recently cited by Brazzil Mag showed that more than 3.2 million people entered the South American nation between January and June 2008.

This is 2.67 per cent up on the amount recorded during the same period of the previous year.

American Airlines has announced that it intends to begin operating new services to Brazil.

According to the carrier, it will expand further into the Brazilian market later this year.

Flights to places such as Recife and Salvador de Bahia will be launched from Miami this November, along with services to Belo Horizonte.

Peter Dolara, senior vice president of American Airlines, has spoken positively of the move and expressed his excitement about the new routes.

He commented: "It is a dynamic country in so many ways, and American's comprehensive schedule puts it all conveniently and easily within reach."

This is the latest step in a series of measures designed to boost the Brazilian aviation sector.

Capacity at the country's airports is set to be improved ahead of the 2014 Fifa World Cup, while a new transport hub in Natal is set to open next year

Vale do Rio Doce, the Brazilian mineral giant, has agreed to purchase 12 ships to be produced in China to expand and maximize profits of its exports of iron and steel. The Brazilian company which has its headquarters in Rio de Janeiro is the world's second largest mineral company and is the world's leading mineral exporter with China being its main importer. According to a spokesperson for Vale due to the increase in costs of shipping resulting from the high price in oil, the company is focused on maximizing exports and profits based on a more efficient logistic infrastructure. The cost of the 12 new ships is additional to a major US$59 billion investment program developed by Vale between 2008 and 2012. The route Brazil-Asia forecasts the transport of 30.2 million metric tons of iron and it will account to 31% of all the iron arriving in China in 2007 

according to researched published last Friday by IBGE. This means a total of 6.3% in the semester, the biggest performance since 2004. Capital goods had an increase of 7.7% and consumer goods reached 7% increase according to IBGE. In these categories the activities / items that registered the biggest expansion were cars, office equipment, PC’s and non-metallic minerals.

The Ministry of Industrial Development forecasts a surplus of U$3,304m in July 2008 - 5.5% increase in relation to the same period last year and 10% increase in relation to June 2008. In total exports had an increase of 38% compared to the same period last year and imports had 52.2% increase reflecting the a more prosperous purchase power and employment rates in Brazil.

Due to urbanisation, a growing middle class and the opening of local mortgage markets property in developing economies is on a tear as the rest of the world stagnates.

RCA says the number of transactions in emerging markets jumped 43 per cent in the first quarter.

And the big investors are jumping in. A Citigroup survey of 50 major pension funds in the US and Europefound that portfolio managers want to commit some $370bn (£184bn, €232bn) to real estate over the next three years, in spite of the slowdown in their domestic markets.

That would bring property holdings up to 6 per cent of their portfolios, from an estimated 4.5 per cent.

Big chunks of that money are beginning to flow into countries such as China, India, Russia and the emerging economies of eastern Europe. Charles Schwab's $228m Global Real Estate Fund, made its first foray into emerging markets in March. Its fund managers have holdings in India, Brazil, Mexico and the Middle East - and insist they have just begun.

"A lot of the real estate we want to invest in doesn't exist right now," says Dionisio Meneses, a portfolio manager at the fund, referring to the huge amount of money chasing relatively few properties. "The opportunity will only increase."

The rush is coming from outside the west, too. Asian pension funds and sovereign wealth funds have begun to search for ways to get into real estate in the developing world, according to an analysis by the Urban Land Institute and PwC.

FORTALEZA, Brazil: Desperate to escape her hand-to-mouth existence in one of the poorest regions of Brazil, Maria Benedita Sousa used a small loan five years ago to buy two sewing machines and start her own business making women’s underwear. Today the mother of three, who started out working in a jeans factory for minimum wage, employs 25 people in a modest two-room facility that produces 55,000 pairs of cotton panties a month. She bought and renovated a house for her family and is now thinking of buying a second car. Her daughter, who is studying nursing, would be the first family member to finish college. ‘‘You can’t imagine the happiness I am feeling,’’ Sousa, 43, said from the floor of her business, ‘‘Big Mateus,’’ which she named after a son. ‘‘I am someone who came from the countryside to the city. I battled and battled, and today my children are studying, with one in college and two others already in school. It’s a gift from God.’’ Today her country is much like she is. Brazil, the largest South American economy, is finally poised to realize its long anticipated potential as a global player, economists say, as it rides its biggest economic expansion in three decades. Despite investor fears about the leftist bent of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva when he was elected in 2002, he has demonstrated a light touch when it comes to economic stewardship, avoiding the populist impulses of leaders in Venezuela and Bolivia. Instead, he has fueled Brazilian growth through a deft combination of respect for financial markets and targeted social programs, which are lifting millions out of poverty, said DavidFleischer, a political analyst and emeritus professor at University of Brasilia. The country even assumed a major role in pushing for a deal in talks at the World Trade Organization, seeing greater access to global markets as an opportunity for its own exporters, rather than a threat.

The growing economic power of Brazil is being felt up and down the social spectrum, creating a new class of super-rich even as people like Sousa lift themselves into an expanding middle class. The momentum of this expansion is expected to last. As the United States and parts of Europe struggle with slowing economies and the fallout from housing crises, the Brazilian economy shows few of the vulnerabilities of other emerging powers. It has greatly diversified its industrial base, has the potential to expand its booming agricultural sector into virgin fields, and holds a tremendous pool of untapped natural resources. New oil discoveries will thrust Brazil into the ranks of the global oil powers within the next decade. Yet while exports of commodities like oil and agricultural goods have driven much of its recent growth, Brazil is less and less dependent on them, economists say, having the advantage of a huge domestic market — 185 million people — that has grown wealthier with the success of people like Sousa. In fact, with a stronger currency and inflation mostly in check, Brazilians are on a spending spree that has become a prime motor for the economy, which grew by 5.4 percent last year. They are buying both Brazilian goods and a rising flood of imported products. Many businesses have relaxed credit terms to allow Brazilians to pay for refrigerators, cars and even plastic surgery over years instead of months, despite some of the highest interest rates in the world. By June, 100 million credit cards had been issued in Brazil, a 17 per-cent jump from the previous year.

Some 277 athletes from the South American country are participating in the sporting spectacle, which gets underway this week, reports Xinhua.

This includes divers, table tennis players, rowers and canoeists, while others are specialising in martial arts such as taekwondo.

The average age of the Olympic team is 26 years old, although the youngest member is just 16.

Brazil is among the countries hoping to host the event in 2016, which means the Beijing Games could be a valuable opportunity for it to state its case.

According to Brazzil Mag, tourism authorities from the country have arrived in China to stage a number of promotional events.

These have been designed to help bolster its bid, although Casa Brazil hopes this will also boost tourism in the South American nation, as well as trade with China

According to the Times, house prices in the South American nation are set to go up over the next few years.

This, it said, is because a number of plans to improve the environment in many parts of the country are set to be implemented.

For example, a new rail link between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro is to be introduced, which will cut journey times to just one hour.

It is expected that the new service will be up and running before the football World Cup comes to Brazil in 2014.

Commenting on the plans, the Times said: "Planned infrastructure improvements should give [house] prices a further push."

The 2014 World Cup will be only the second time that Brazil has hosted the football tournament and the first World Cup to be staged in South America since 1978.

However, it is the most successful nation in terms of the game itself, as Brazil have lifted the trophy a record five times.