São Paulo – The Brazilian minister of Finance Guido Mantega has announced this Monday (29th), in São Paulo, that the federal government is granting a 3% credit to manufactured good exporting companies beginning next October. Mantega said the benefit will be part of the Reintegra tax refund program for exporting companies. The credits will be based on export value and should have a fiscal impact of R$ 6 billion (US$ 2.4 billion) over a 12-month period.
The initial plan was a 0.3% credit, but according to Mantega, the government increased the rate to 3% because the manufacturing industry was badly hit by the 2008 crisis. Mantega made the announcement following a meeting with executives at the headquarters of the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp).
The government has also announced tax breaks on input imports for the manufacturing of export products. Mantega also said R$ 200 million (US$ 81.3 million) have been added to the budget of the Proex export financing program.
According to information from the Ministry of Finance, the government has also committed to implementing measures to streamline export and import costs and deadlines. In exports, the goal is to reduce processing times from 13 to eight days. Processing times for imports should decrease from 17 to 13 days.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
