São Paulo – Nossa Caixa Development, a fostering agency recently created by the government of the state of São Paulo, wants to find international partners for its project of funding small- and medium-sized companies based in the state. To that extent, the president at the institution, Milton Luiz de Melo Santos, who until very recently was the main executive at bank Nossa Caixa, visited the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce yesterday (23), where he met with the president at the organisation, Salim Taufic Schahin.
“We are interested in effecting operations using funds from foreign fostering agencies that are willing to inject capital into companies owned by descendents [of immigrants]. The Arab countries have an expressive volume of funds and Brazil, due to the crisis, is now one of the few countries that are able to receive foreign capital,” stated Santos.
Brazil houses the largest community of Arab origin outside the Middle East and North Africa. The new institution is also going to seek partnerships in the countries of origin of other large colonies of immigrants and descendents living in São Paulo, such as Japan and Italy.
According to the executive, the agency is going to finance working capital, purchase of capital goods and foreign trade operations by small- and medium-sized companies. He added that smaller companies have been selected as a target because they are the ones that suffer the most with the crisis, especially those in the industrial sector. “These are companies that suffer, on the one hand, with the brutal retraction of demand and, on the other hand, with difficulty financing their working capital,” said Santos.
In order to effectively help these companies, according to Santos, the lines of financing are going to be long-term, with "competitive" grace periods and interest rates, and the institution intends to adopt a "proactive" stance with regard to client prospecting, including the singling out of priority sectors and the formation of communication channels with the companies by means of organisations such as the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae), the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp), the Federation of Agriculture of the State of São Paulo (Faesp) and the São Paulo Trade Association (ACSP).
For the credit lines, the agency is going to use its own capital, as well as that of third parties, such as the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) and international fostering organisations. The new institution is born with a capital of 1 billion Brazilian reals (US$ 443 million), using part of the funds from the sale of the Nossa Caixa bank to the Bank of Brazil. The use of the name Nossa Caixa Development was negotiated with the Bank of Brazil, according to Santos.
The creation of the agency in itself is partly a result of the sale of Nossa Caixa, because the state government no longer had an official bank to support its public policies. According to Santos, with the new institution, the government will be better able to allocate funds for encouraging the productive sector. It is going to be the tool for implementation of anti-cyclical policies turned to reducing the social impact of the crisis, i.e., preventing unemployment from rising as a consequence of the economic slowdown.
According to figures already surveyed by the agency, the state counts on approximately 1.75 million companies, almost 1.5 million of which are small-sized. From that total, 60% are based in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, especially in the areas of trade and services, followed by industry. The agricultural enterprises are mostly located in the interior of the state. Some segments that have already been ascribed priority by the institution are those of auto parts and capital goods, which had been growing strongly before the crisis and are now suffering with the reduced demand and credit scarcity.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
