São Paulo – The need to maintain competitiveness in Brazilian industry was the theme of a meeting on Friday (4) at the offices of the National Confederation of Industries (CNI), in São Paulo. The event included the participation of ministers Fernando Pimentel (Development, Industry and Foreign Trade) and Aloizio Mercadante (Science and Technology) and of the governor of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), Luciano Coutinho.
Chaired by Robson Braga de Andrade, the chairman at CNI, the meeting brought together members of government and 34 representatives of large Brazilian companies behind closed doors. They discussed measures to stimulate innovation. "We need more added value, more technology and innovation in our export basked," said Mercadante, in a press conference after the meeting.
"We do not have a culture of innovation in Brazil. We have spot efforts. This mobilisation shows a new moment in which companies and governments are concerned with that," said Pimentel. The meeting was the first this year for Business Mobilisation for Innovation, an initiative led by the CNI that aims to place innovation in the centre of Brazilian company strategy. The objective of the program is to double the number of export companies up to 2013.
According to Andrade, a partnership is being established between the private sector and the government regarding questions connected to tax reduction on investment and exports. "The question of innovation should grant sustainability for industry to become competitive," he said.
The ministers did not speak about potential measures to stimulate innovation. Mercadante alone recalled some incentive laws that are already in place and said that they will be strengthened, like the so-called "Law for Good" (which offers fiscal incentives to companies that promote technological research and innovation), the Innovation Law, the program for stimulation to the economy and the policy for public purchases.
"We are going to proceed in this route, the BNDES and the Finep (Studies and Projects Funding Body, an organisation connected to the Ministry of Science and Technology) are going to progress further in this direction so that we may gain competitiveness in other sectors, like we did, for example, in agriculture, with the Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation)," said Mercadante, mentioning the importance of the Brazilian aviation and automotive industry.
Mercadante recalled the financing lines already available for innovation in industry and said that fiscal incentives should be boosted. "The credit of the Finep and BNDES are immense. From the BNDES alone they exceed 120 billion reals (US$ 72 billion), and an important share is for innovation and there are non-refundable programs currently offered by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the Finep and the Ministry of Science and Technology."
Regarding the target for fiscal incentives, Mercadante said that "we have to advance every year". "We have advanced much, our investment in research and development was 0.9% of GDP eight years ago, and is currently 1.53%, growth of over 50%. The global average is 2%, so we are growing much," he finished off.
Luciano Coutinho spoke about the part played by small and medium companies in innovation in Brazil and said that the BNDES card may be used for the hiring of consultancy companies and purchase of equipment for innovation in these sectors. "We are moving at great strides to create a system for innovation that comes from the base, from small companies and reaches large companies," he said.
Imports
Fernando Pimentel highlighted the import fees that end up making Brazilian products lose ground to Chinese products. The minister said that the country should start practicing a policy of "trade defence to protect the productive sector from damaging practices". Among the sectors most affected, according to Pimentel, are the shoe, textile and electronic sectors.
"We are not going to charge anyone indiscriminately, we are going to charge products that are causing an imbalance in the trade basket and that clearly show practices that are against the regulations of the WTO (World Trade Organisation)," he clarified. Pimentel also said that the team in his ministry is analysing all 12,000 items in the Brazilian trade basket to define a list of products that should receive surcharges.
*Translated by Mark Ament
