With a population of 184 million, Brazil's potential internal market is large, and the country has attracted a host of multinational companies.

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To that end, Alcoa is working with three non-profits, American Forests, Greening Australia and the Nature Conservancy, which has a large reforestation project in Brazil.

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Brazil also has a generous land to people ratio, with a large basket of natural resources, including petroleum, for a population that is relatively small (200 million) compared to China and India.

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Petrobras has secured a large slug of cheap funding from BNDES, Brazil's state development bank.

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In return, the army has accepted a supreme court decision creating a large Indian reserve on Brazil's northern border, a measure it had previously opposed.

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