Brazil - The Perennial Under Achiever

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Brazil, the largest country in Latin America and the fifth largest in the world, was endowed with huge natural resources. Brazil was the world's most prominent coffee producer. The country had vast mineral resources, hydroelectric potential and hardwood forests. Brazil also had natural advantages in agricultural products, livestock products, wood products and mineral and metal products (iron, steel and aluminium). Despite all these advantages, Brazil continued to be way behind the developed countries. As the Economist put it, Brazil remained 'a social and economic under achiever, the eternal country of the future, whose future never arrives'. The case illustrates the challenges developing countries face in hastening economic development.