Recently, he turned up to oversee a dramatic expansion of his group’s outlets in this Latin American nation which is generating more than 20 million euros a year to Lacoste’s bottom line — double that of just five years ago.

Lacoste is not alone. Investors, especially European ones, are flocking to Brazil, eager to get a piece of its booming economy as the U.S. and European markets slip into low gear.

“It seems to us that Brazil has perspectives for growth and development that are really remarkable. And that’s the reason why we are very substantially increasing our presence here,” Lacoste, the son of the company’s tennis champ founder Rene Lacoste, told AFP.

These days, many shopfronts in Brazil are emblazoned with European logos, among them Spain’s Telefonica, Italy’s TIM, Diesel and Replay, and France’s Carrefour. On the roads, Peugeots, Volkswagens and Fiats are legion.

The Netherlands leads the European invasion with a concentration in the food sector, and is in fact the overall number one direct foreign investor, according to Sobeet, a Brazilian association studying transnational companies.

All up, the Europeans were responsible for more than half the US$34.3 billion in direct foreign investment that came to Brazil in 2007, Sobeet president Luis Afonso Lima said.

By way of comparison, the United States — Brazil’s main trading partner and generally a very active investor in Latin America — was lagging with just 17 percent of the inflow.

“In terms of stocks, European investments are more important than American investments, and in terms of flows, this is becoming more and more the truth,” Lima said.

“We see a tendency of decrease of the American investment, and the European investment on the other hand is increasing, so this difference is becoming bigger and bigger.”

He also added that while China was attracting a growing amount of investment, Brazil, a former Portuguese colony with historic links to the Old Continent, still held a larger amount of European investment.

And there is no sign of that European interest flagging.

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