It was Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs Asset Management who coined the term BRICS, when we was referring to the growth in the emerging market countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. In recent weeks one has seen an up rising in Brazil. Street demonstrations that hit Brazil last month began as opposition to transportation fare hikes, but have spread to include protests against a wide range of grievances, including the high cost of the World Cup and Olympics with the spiralling cost of living. The middle class are clearly feeling squeezed.

Latin America has seen a huge expansion in economic growth, with China buying raw materials from Brazil. Today Brazil boasts some of the largest companies, the banking giant Itau, Vale [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vale_(mining_company)] a top four miner in the world and Petrobas [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrobras] one of the world’s largest oil companies. Also Brazil has a mature aerospace industry too, with Embraer [http://www.embraer.com/en-US/Pages/Home.aspx]

Latin America has a growing middle class that are now becoming consumers, just like India and China. The issue in Latin America as in other emerging markets is the gap between rich and poor that is causing social problems and the need for efficient transport systems that are dependent on a more robust infrastructure.

Retail investors can get access to investment opportunities in Latin America with funds like this from Invesco Perpetual:
[http://www.invescoperpetual.co.uk/site/ip/pdf/3302770_EN_GB-ip-latin-amer-fnd-fctsht.pdf]