Over the latest 18 years, Brazilian economy has made significant progress in many areas, but we highlight two main socioeconomic issues:
i) the stabilization of the economy since 1994 (note Brazil faced a severe hyperinflation from the 80´s up to 1993)
ii) the inequality reduction trend, in which millions of families left out poverty benefitted by the stabilization of the economy (inflation affects more heavily poor families), increase on minimum wages and social programs such as the so-called 'Bolsa-Familia' which is a conditional cash transfer program designed to help the poorest families.

The current hot topics are based on the need to improve the quantity and quality of physical infrastructure and education in Brazil, as well as the need of structural reforms on issues such as tax, labor and social security. It is a common sense that Brazil lags behind on those areas and the country needs to catch up as soon as possible if it really want to gets higher sustainable growth rates, as well as to tackle development issues.

However, at this moment I´m afraid these let´s say reforms on education, physical infrastructure, tax, labor system and so on will not be implemented on the velocity needed. It is important to have in mind that these investments take a very long time (in case of education, the more substantial perceived changes surpass generations, I mean, it might take more than 20 years).The returns of those policies are not rapidly perceived by the population, and the short-term political interests is one of the obstacles to effectively achieve continuous advances on those areas which requires long-term policy view.

In terms of investments in physical infrastructure I share a slight more optimistic view. It´s commonly known the deficiencies of Brazilian transport system, which adds a high cost for local producers, and it is one element of Brazilian competitive disadvantage. I see great difficulties in attracting private investors (domestic and foreign ones) due to the uncertainties on the expected costs and returns of those direct investments. However, although those investments might start later than currently planned by the government and expected by businessmen, I think it might take place over the next five to ten years and it might improve at least a relevant share of brazilian physical infrastructure.

There is so much to be done. During my one year study stay in Germany I had the chance to visit the Hamburg harbour, which is the second largest harbour in Europe (the largest one is the Roterda harbour in Netherlands). The harbour is really huge, and it makes Santos harbour a very tiny one. I spent my childhood in Santos, and the harbour is the biggest one in Brazil, but I´ve been told that many big ships cannot dock at Santos harbour, and I sometimes can observe many ships on the horizon, and I imagine many of them are lined up and stay there for a long time (days, weeks, or even months).