São Paulo – The government of Bahia is working on increasing internationalization of small and medium companies. Early this year the Programme for Competitiveness for Internationalisation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Bahia was implemented, to inform the business sector about what Brazil has to offer to help the these organisations export. A seminar for this purpose will be held on May 15th and 16th, in Juazeiro, a city in the interior of Bahia state.
According to the Studies and Strategic Projects coordinator at the Bahia state Secretariat of Industry, Trade and Mining, Rosangela de Marco, at the meetings, activities developed by partners of the state government and turned to internationalisation of companies will be shown. In Juazeiro, the programs to be shown will be those developed by the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex), the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae), the Brazilian Post Office and the Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development (ABDI), among others.
Small and medium enterprises, according to Rosangela, represent a very low percentage of the state’s exports. Last year, Bahia’s export revenues totalled US$ 11.2 billion and the main products shipped were fuel oil, chemical pulp, soy and cotton. There are no figures showing small company participation in this total. The state had 2.2% growth in foreign sales as against 2011.
The program put in operation in Bahia is part of the National Export Culture Plan, developed by the federal government. According to Rosangela, last year some initiatives were taken to educate businessmen on export, but the project was only officially opened in 2013. Planned for this year are meetings in the cities of Barriers, Vitória da Conquista, Ilheus, Salvador and Teixeira de Freitas. In each seminar, the export needs and profile of each city will be evaluated for the definition of specific actions to be taken.
In Juazeiro, the event will occur during the 24th National Exhibition of Irrigated Agriculture and the 7th Sheep and Goat Exhibition of the São Francisco Valley, which take place at the Federal University of the São Francisco Valley (Univasf). The Apex representative will address the issues of operation in global markets, the Sebrae representative will talk about innovation in small businesses and the speaker from the postal services will present the organisation’s "Exporta Fácil" programme. The Bank of Brazil and the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade will give basic export courses. There will also be lectures by other organisations.
Service:
Programme for Competitiveness for Internationalisation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)
May 15th and 16th, 2013
Univasf – Juazeiro – BA
Phone: (+55 71) 31157817
Email: exporta.bahia@sicm.ba.gov.br
Site: http://www.exportabahia.ba.gov.br/home
*Translated by Mark Ament
