978-1-4222-3296-5

Brazil has built South America’s largest economy, but industrialization has led to environmental problems. (Opposite) An offshore oil rig pumps oil off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. (Right) A sugar mill operates in Orindiúva. Brazil is the largest producer of sugar cane in the world. A proportion of the sugar is turned into ethanol, a fuel that is widely used in Brazil. 3

The Economy: Powerhouse Potential

BRAZIL BOASTS SOUTH America’s largest economy, with a gross domestic product , or GDP, of $2.4 trillion in the year 2014. (GDP is the total value of goods and services a country produces annually.) This ranked seventh among all the world’s countries, and is the highest figure in South America. From the late 1960s to the 1980s, many experts predicted that Brazil would become one of the world’s leading economic powerhouses. It still may, though it will have to overcome a burdensome debt problem. Today, Brazil’s public debt—the amount the government has borrowed to finance its operations, and must pay back—is more than half the total value of its GDP. What this means is that each year, a huge amount of the wealth Brazil’s economy creates must go toward paying interest on money the country has borrowed. In addition,

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