São Paulo – A group of ten Brazilian mayors has learnt more about the workings of the city of Dubai and its businesses late last year. The Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae) arranged a trip for the heads of government of ten Brazilian municipalities, chosen during the last edition of Prêmio Prefeito Empreendedor (the Enterprising Mayor Prize) to visit three overseas municipalities. Besides Dubai, they went to Sydney, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand, in a bid to get a grasp of how these cities are run and how their management reflects on business.
According to the Public Policies manager at Sebrae/RS, Alessandro Machado, who travelled alongside the mission, in Dubai the group mostly got in touch with business executives, via the intermediation of sectoral organizations. “Things are simpler in these countries, one can set up a business quicker, not as many licenses are required, entrepreneurs don’t need proof of their good faith in order to set up a business,” the manager says regarding the three countries. He stressed the good faith issue in Dubai, where much value is placed upon one’s word. “They assume most people are acting in good faith until proven otherwise,” Machado says.
He stressed, however, that although more paperwork is involved in Brazil, some efforts have streamlined the process of setting up a business, such as the individual entrepreneur profile, a category for legal entities in the annual revenue range of up to R$ 60,000 (roughly US$ 19,000 at current exchange rates). “Blanket statements cannot be made, there have been some advances,” he says.
One of the Enterprising Mayor Prize-winning mayors, from Rio Grande do Sul state, in southern Brazil, is Nestor Tissot, from the city of Gramado. Machado notes that Dubai and Gramado share a few similar processes when it comes to seeking investment in tourism. “Even though the [UAE] are a completely different country than ours in its culture and geography, they are fully aware that their oil is finite. They are moving towards tourism,” he says.
The manager says Gramado has also experienced this in the past, since it was home to a major footwear manufacturing company that shut down. The city then placed a wager on tourism. At first, all it had was good weather. Now, Gramado is famous for its artisanal chocolate, cinema (it hosts an annual national festival), Christmas celebration Natal Luz, various events, rural production and other activities.
Regarding the three cities, the mayors pointed out the fact that the federal governments take care of most public issues, from healthcare to education and infrastructure. This allows mayors to focus more on the economic development of cities. Sebrae’s award is precisely intended for mayors who manage to help small businesses thrive.
In Gramado’s case, the project that caused the manager to be chosen was Natal Luz, which the city hall coordinates, but is really held by the community. At Christmas time, the city of Gramado morphs into an open air spectacle featuring shows and tourist attractions of all kinds. The event is produced by entrepreneurs who have gone formal, undergone training, and make a living out of Natal Luz as a business.
Enterprising Mayor
The Enterprising Mayor Award is held biennially. Entries for the upcoming edition should open in April this year, but the cities the winners will go to have not been chosen yet. Besides Tissot, mayors who won the award in 2014 were Paulo Pombo Tocantins, from Paragominas, in the northern Brazilian state Pará; Douglas Lucena de Medeiros, from Bananeiras, in Paraíba, Northeast Brazil; Maurílio Ferreira Azambuja, from Maracaju, Mato Grosso do Sul, in the Midwest; and Vinícius Medeiros Farah, from Três Rios, Rio de Janeiro, in the Southeast.
Seven other mayors were awarded under specific categories such as General Law Implemented (Cícero Neco Morais, from Estreito, Maranhão), Government Purchases (Eduardo Medeiros Cabral, from Cristália, Minas Gerais), De-bureaucratization (Charles Fernandes Silveira Santana, from Guanambi, Bahia), Small Businesses in the Countryside (Ricardo Favaro Neto, Itaqueraí, Mato Grosso do Sul), Small Businesses in Sports Events (José Rechuan Júnior, from Resende, Rio de Janeiro), New Projects (Laurez da Rocha Moreira, from Gurupi, Tocantins), and Enterprising Honor of Merit (Altair Cardoso Rittes, from Dionísio Cerqueira, Santa Catarina).
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
