Economy of Brazil compared to only US$2 billion per year last decade, remarkable growth. The agricultural sector, locally called the "agronegócio" (agro-business), has also been remarkably dynamic: for two decades this sector has kept Brazil among the most highly productive countries in areas related to the rural sector. The agricultural sector and the mining sector also supported trade surpluses which allowed for massive currency gains (rebound) and external debt paydown. Due to a downturn in Western economies, Brazil found itself in 2010 trying to halt the appreciation of the real. Data from the Asian Development Bank and the Tax Justice Network show the
Demographics of Brazil but also other many indigenous Brazilian ethnic groups). Starting in the late 19th century, Brazil received substantial post-colonial immigration from several other regions, mainly from peoples of what are now the countries of Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland, as well as Arabic-speaking Christians from the Levant (mostly from what is now Lebanon, and less so from what is today Syria), Ukraine, Japan, the People's Republic of China and Korea. Jews in Brazil are a small but sizable population, and they include mostly Ashkenazi Jews (who also arrived with the post-colonial contingent of European migration), a smaller proportion of Sephardi Jews (mostly