Brazil at a Glance

• Population: 182.5 million


• Capital city: Brasilia, 450,000 inhabitants


• Language: Portuguese (in a Brazilian variant)


• Religions: Catholics, increasing protestant groups and sects


• Form of government: Presidential Federal Republic

Economy

Brazil is Germany's most important Latin American trading partner. Brazil ranks 29th among the countries importing goods from Germany, and 26th among exporters to Germany. Germany is the third-largest foreign investor in Brazil. Significantly, the approx. 800 German subsidiary companies already operating in Brazil are reinvesting more of their profits. Including reinvestment and third-country investments, investments by German companies have reached some US-Dollar 20 billion. New investments have also risen again since the beginning of 2004. Germany has three well equipped German-Brazilian chambers of commerce and industry in Brazil, located in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre (southern Brazil).

Culture and Science

Both Germany and Brazil attach particular importance to scientific, technological and cultural exchange. On the cultural front, too, Brazil is an important partner for Germany, and Brazil has always been keen to cooperate with Germany.

The Goethe Institute maintains five branch offices in Brazil: in São Paulo, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador. Moreover, it supports the Goethe Centre in Brasilia, the German-Brazilian Cultural Centre in Recife and the cultural agencies of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Belém, Fortaleza and Belo Horizonte.

German as a foreign language is very popular and attracting growing numbers of students, not only amongst traditional German immigrants in the South, but in the rest of the country as well. Nowadays, German is seen as an increasingly important employment qualification. Altogether, some 80,000 pupils learn German in Brazil. Cooperation with Brazilian universities is playing a growing role. The country is already DAAD’s major partner in Latin America. To date, more than 28,000 students and scientists have received support from its numerous scholarship programmes, and over 50 partnership and research programme agreements have been concluded between German and Brazilian universities.

There has also been a greater exchange of artists in recent years. At the 2002 São Paulo biennial festival, which was directed by the German curator Alfons Hug entitled, Iconografias Metropolitanas, works by German artists were accorded a prominent role.

Links

www.brasilianische-botschaft.de (Official Representation of Brazil in Germany)
www.brasilia.diplo.de (German Embassy in Brazil)
www.ahkbrasil.com (German Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Brazil)
www.goethe.de/brasilia (Goethe-Institut in Brasilia)