Brazil's rapid economic growth over the last decade, as well
as the emergence of a new middle class, has put a strain on the
country's transport infrastructure. Brazil is now the
sixth largest economy in the world but ranks just 104th in respect
of the quality of its infrastructure according to a 2011 survey by
the World Economic Forum, behind all other BRICS (Russia is ranked
100, China 69, India 86 and South Africa 60). Over the past
10 years Brazil has been investing around1% of GDP in
infrastructure each year, as against 7.3% for China. In fact,
Brazil needs investments of 3% every year just to avoid the
deterioration of existing infrastructure. Transport
bottlenecks are hurting the competitiveness of major industries
such as mining and agribusiness and Brazil will be in the
international spotlight as it hosts the upcoming 2014 football
World Cup and the 2016 Rio Olympics. However, Brazil's
Federal Government is making an effort to tackle the issue.
