"Brazil's Wealthiest Urban Areas"

Found over a length south of the Amazon, Brazil is entirely self-sufficient in cassiterite (tin ore). While Rio Grande do Norte mines almost all of the tungsten needed in Brazil, Bahia and Paraná produce most of the silver utilized there. Concentrated in Santa Catarina, coal extraction meets more than half the national demand. Brazil is a large gold and diamond producer even though quantities vary greatly depending on year and region as mines are discovered and depleted. Though Pará generates minor amounts, mostly at Serra Pelada, where tens of thousands of garimpeiros gathered during gold rushes in the 1980s and 1990s, most gold and diamonds are mined in Minas Gerais. Brazil is a world leader in precious and semiprecious stones; most of its diamonds come from Minas Gerais, Bahia, and Espírito Santo.

gasoline and natural gas Produced from offshore resources along the continental shelf, most of Brazil's natural gas and petroleum is Drillings between 1940 and the 1960s limited themselves to the Northeast, more specifically the Bahia basin north of Salvador. Later on, studies included offshore from Fortaleza in the north to Santos (in São Paulo state) in the south as well as wells on the continent. More than two-thirds of Brazil's petroleum comes from the Campos basin found on the continental shelf off Rio de Janeiro. Including a well around 1.5 miles (2.4km) below the surface, Petrobrás produced some of the most modern deepwater drilling methods available worldwide. Early in the twenty-first century Petrobrás discovered that the Tupi offshore oil field, around 4.3 miles (6.9km) deep, contained between five and eight million natural gas and oil reserves, therefore considerably increasing Brazil's oil reserves. Although supplies of natural gas and petroleum abound over the Amazon basin, oil refineries close to Manaus have limited capacity.

Most natural gas used in the country comes from Bahia and Sergipe. Authority

Mostly largely to hydroelectricity, which today provides for nine-tenths of Brazil, the country's total power capacity has fast increased since 1950. Because of inferior quality of Brazilian coal, the government has assigned less significance to thermal power producing. Starting an initiative to create largely southeast gas-fired thermoelectric producing units, a gas pipeline from Bolivia opened in 1999 driven by Mostly in the Southeast, several gas-fired thermoelectric facilities sprung from the building of a natural gas pipeline between Bolivia and Brazil in 1999. Brazil: Angra nuclear power station Angra dos Reis nuclear power station of Rio de Janeiro Itaipú Dam divides Brazil and Paraguay. The Itaipú Dam's spillway lies on the Paraná River, on the boundary between Brazil and Paraguay. Angra I opened in 1982 close to Rio de Janeiro, first nuclear reactor built in Brazil. Angra II, the second nuclear reactor built in Brazil, began functioning in 2000. Originally built on the Alto Paraná River between Brazil and Paraguay in 1984, the Itaipú hydroelectric complex rose to become the largest power station in the world at the time Many smaller producing plants can be found along the Paraná and Uruguay rivers and their tributaries. Other important complexes are Tucuruí, which began running on the Tocantins River in the middle of the 1980s, and the Sobradinho and Paulo Afonso series of stations on the lower São Francisco River.

Environmental issues have stalled large hydroelectric projects in the Amazon region.

Brazilian Industry

With almost one-fifth of the GDP and more than a tenth of the workforce accounted for, manufacturing makes around In every sector, the Southeast boasts the biggest, most varied, and most successful companies with few exceptions. It also uses three-fifths of Brazil's industrial workers, who produce most of the nation's goods and earn the highest salaries. Although the Northeast employs about half of the nation's industrial workers and pays less than the Southeast and South, the South employs more than one-fifth of all the workers in the country. With over two-fifths of Brazil's produced goods generated by São Paulo, the industrial industries in Paraná, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, and Espírito Santo are progressively facing competition from São Paulo. Usually tiny, Brazilian factories employ just a hundred or more people. The largest companies, as expected, are in the Southeast; the South follows.

Having produced around two million automobiles annually, Brazil has been a significant worldwide automotive supplier since the middle of the 20th century.

Other main manufacturing sectors include paints, soaps, medications, chemicals, aircraft, steel, food products, paper, and electrical machinery. From the early nineteenth century, Brazil has been a top producer of textiles, clothing, and shoes. Originally based on local raw cotton supplies, the textile business started in Bahia in 1814 and is today concentrated on São Paulo and Fortaleza. Based in Rio Grande do Sul, the footwear industry started in the 1820s with small leather businesses making use of leftover skins from the meatpacking industry. Resources With almost half of the workforce employed in the fast growing service sector, Brazil's biggest employer is this one. It comprises government as well as private services including national and municipal bureaucracy, public utilities, and a range of specialized agencies. Most private sector employees work in the hotel, restaurant, and pub sectors as well as in different kinds of repair shops. The most of the remaining private-sector employment are in retail sales or personal services. Employment-wise, information technology is the fastest growing industry.