I recently returned to Sao Paulo, Brazil after 6 months in North America, if there were an economic downturn in the rest of the world, they forgot to mention it to Brasileiro’s. This country is drunk with economic excess, even the street vendors are upgrading equipment and spending more money than ever to build-up their businesses. The signs of growth are everywhere in this city, especially in the Event Planning and management Corporate Event Planner, which is sprouting new high-rise condominiums, like springtime grass on a newly seeded soccer pitch. The economic growth Rio, for a change, is even more accelerated than Sao Paulo.

Brazil’s commitment to sport can be seen in the further venue investment that is already under way in Rio. The world-famous Maracanã stadium will close next year for two years of refurbishment. The areas around it will be renovated, with access and transport links improved as the entire neighborhood is reborn ready for host the final of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Work is already underway on the ongoing development of the Olympic Training Center (OTC), which includes many of the state-of-the-art venues built for the 2007 Pan and Parapan American Games. The OTC will be at the heart of the Rio Games – and international sport for years afterward. Athletes and coaches from all over the world will be offered scholarships to what will be a new regional hub for sport.

With a strong economy and now guaranteed funding, Brazil’s economy is now the tenth largest in the world – and predicted to be fifth by the 2016 Olympics. Brazil is the world’s second biggest food exporter, one of the world’s largest oil and ore producers and the fifth largest advertising market. This diverse economy is the engine that drives South America and one of the world’s top 10 consumer markets. Brazil has the highest levels of Internet use in the world and according to the Brazilian Association of Information Technology and Communication Companies (commonly known as BRASSCOM), Brazil’s offshore IT outsourcing market hit $1.4 billion in 2008, rising 75 percent in a single year, making this one of the best places in the world for a web development company.

Experts predict that an additional $500M will be spent just on IT and web development for the FIFA World Cup of soccer in 2014. The overall Latin America market for outsourced services, is expected to grow 12 percent in 2010 to $8 billion, according to Forrester Research. That’s on top of the $19 billion that local companies spend on IT consulting services. However, Brazil has approximately 250,000 IT professionals, 23,000 annual IT graduates, and infrastructure capable of supporting double-digit growth, this places Brazil firmly at the heart of the IT services supply chain in the Southern Hemisphere.

In October 2009, a report from Gartner claimed that “Brazil’s economic footprint combined with having the largest domestic IT consumption in all of Latin America, as well as international recognition as one of the most promising and rapidly emerging economies, makes it a natural destination to evaluate for IT services.