Sao Paulo unveils ambitious plan to lure foreign investment

Sao Paulo State Governor Geraldo Alckmin has outlined an ambitious plan to attract foreign investment with the aim of creating 1.5 million new jobs by 2014. Titled "Sao Paulo in the World," the blueprint, unveiled in the presence of Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota, aims to promote the state's sustainable development, develop international partnerships and raise the city's international profile. Sao Paulo is Latin America's financial, economic and industrial engine and ranks among the world's top 20 economies. Officials are banking on state GDP growth of around 4.5 percent over the 2012-2015 period. "The adoption of this plan means that all 26 state secretariats will go operate with an arm abroad," the governor said. "Each Sao Paulo conquest is a Brazilian conquest." Patriota meanwhile stressed that "the state of Sao Paulo is an integral and inseparable part of Brazil's internal relations, part of a national development program." The plan sets international targets in the economic, social, sport, tourism, environment, justice, transport, and infrastructure areas among others. In the educational field, the goal is to promote the teaching of foreign languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese though the expansion of networks of Language Studies Centers reaching 100,000 students by 2014. The state is also keen to foster cooperation and exchange programs in the technical, technological, cultural and commercial fields with foreign actors, including sovereign states, subnational entities and international organizations. This cosmopolitan state is home to 41 million people, equivalent to the population of Argentina, and covers an area of 248,000 square kilometers (95,753 square miles), the size of Ecuador or the Philippines. Its residents represent nearly 150 nationalities, including the biggest communities of Italians, Japanese, Portuguese and Lebanese outside their respective home countries. Sao Paulo City's metropolitan area alone has a population of around 20 million people.