Brazil has become one of the leading economies in the World, making it to number ten in the World GDP chart. As a member of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) emerging powers, it's economy is expected to continue to grow, and to possibly dominate Latin America even more in the future. Being the fifth most populous country in the World, Brazil has used it's giant workforce to fuel large-scale expansion of it's agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors. It's main exports include aircraft, automobiles, coffee, corned beef, electrical equipment, ethanol, footwear, iron ore, orange juice, soybean, steel and textiles. Whilst the gap between rich and poor on the South American continent remains higher than in most other regions of the World, this is closing in recent years, mostly fuelled by exports of natural resources and manufactured goods, with Brazil, Chile and Argentina leading the way exporting a combined US$250bn annually.

We have chose to include both the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) estimates along with those from the World Bank, and the variations in the two sets of figures can be explained by different testing criteria and techniques by the World's two 'most trusted' financial institutions. The figures below are listed by 'nominal' Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which measures the market value of all goods and services from an entire nation in a given year.