The Goldman Sachs Conference in New York last week assembled a powerful line-up of more than 50 leading retailers.

The Goldman Sachs Conference in New York last week assembled a powerful line-up of more than 50 leading retailers.

The largely American agenda included no British participants but there was one from Brazil: CBD (Pão de Açúcar) the number two Brazilian food retailer and a dominant force in durable goods.

This presence on the world stage of a player from Brazil beggars the anachronistic tag ‘emerging market’. The present participle has become a fait accompli as Brazil has surely emerged.

That old adage ‘Brazil is the future… and it always will be’ is truly confounded by the reality of Brazil today - let alone tomorrow.

Everything points to unstoppable growth for this stable democracy, the world’s eighth largest internal economy and a natural resources/commodities superpower that has proved largely immune to the global financial crisis.

GDP per capita (already more than double that of China) is forecast to grow to $21,000 over the next 10 years. And the 2012 World Cup, the 2016 Olympics and, potentially, the 2020 World Fair in São Paulo, will secure global attention and serious, long-term investment.

Much of Brazil’s growth is driven by the retail sector. And yet, although it comes first in the acronymic BRIC, Brazil mostly comes last in international retailers’ expansion plans for these markets. This merits serious reappraisal.

In this Latin American marketplace, the Latin clearly leads the way over the American and although Walmart is the number three food retailer, it is major groups from France (Carrefour, Casino) Spain (Inditex, Mango) and other European countries such as The Netherlands (C&A, Makro) that are the real pioneers. This derives from a deep-rooted cultural empathy between Europe and Brazil, on both corporate and consumer fronts.

The population of 193 million has seen dramatic social transformation: in 2003 the combined ABC classes represented just over half the population; by 2008 they accounted for more than two thirds and, at this rate, will reach 150 million people before the decade is out.

It is a young (62% under the age of 29) urbanised society with a buoyant labour market and a high propensity to spend (household expenditure is 61% of GDP) sustained by exceptionally low savings rates. Retail sales are growing by 10% per annum, underpinned by strong consumer confidence, stable interest rates and rising access to credit.

There are numerous domestic retail groups of scale and of note: O Boticário, the beauty specialist has 2,800 shops in Brazil, Tok & Stok is a world class chain of home stores and Renner, the department store group, plans to double its 120-store estate in the next five years.

The Brazilian retail sector, led by these and other groups, together of course with CBD, is set to become as prominent as Sugar Loaf Mountain itself.

Michael Poynor managing director, Retail Expertise