São Paulo – The order is to work in order to gain the world, in a process that will start next month. April will see the start of the first actions in the National Exporter Culture Plan. It is an undertaking of Brazil’s Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade and Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae), alongside 12 other organizations, to foster exports among small-sized businesses in 14 states, whose separate shares in overall Brazilian sales are lower than 1%.
Presently, half of what Brazil ships abroad originates from São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. Should everything go as planned, starting in 2013, the number of small and micro businesses which export in Brazil should rise by 10% to 15% a year.
The intention is to take advantage of the bullish industry sales, which have grown by 49% from 2009 to 2010 according to the ministry, as against a 32% rise in overall exports from Brazil. In 2010, micro and small businesses sold the equivalent of US$ 1.9 billion to the world. The National Exporter Culture Plan covers the states of Ceará, Amazonas, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Rondônia, Amapá, Tocantins, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Piauí, Sergipe, Acre and Roraima, plus the Federal District.
“We want more micro and small businesses to export,” explains the Market Access and Financial Services manager at Sebrae Nacional, Paulo Alvim. “There are plenty of opportunities and demand is strong in regions such as Asia,” he says.
According to Alvim, the first step in the National Exporter Culture Plan will be getting the states and organizations involved in the project. “We will coordinate everything for the company information, guidance and training stages, which will come afterward,” he says.
Prize in Pernambuco
In Pernambuco, one of the states covered by the Plan, local export fostering initiatives include courses and even a prize. “Here we already have the course Planejando para Internacionalizar (Planning to Internationalize), which will gain strength with the new nationwide measures,” says the manager of Sebrae Pernambuco’s Micro and Small Business Internationalization Project, Margarida Colier. “And we are setting up the Export Prize for Micro and Small Businesses, a pilot project of ours that may be extended to the whole country later.”
To the manager, one of the main merits of the Plan developed by the ministry and the Sebrae is that it integrates different foreign sales support activities. “Whenever we act alone, in individual states, everything is harder,” she says.
The businessman Paulo Moraes, who runs children’s shoes company Xick Baby, in the Pernambuco state capital Recife, also believes in the implementation of efforts of this kind as a support to increasing exports. However, he stresses that the initiative of small businesses themselves is also a strategy in order to grow abroad. “I have taken part in similar local programs, such as Exportador do Futuro (Exporter of the Future),” he says. “These are interesting experiences, but thus far all of my foreign sales were closed via our website,” he says.
Currently, he sells shoes to Australia and has negotiations underway in Paraguay. He also has a trade show scheduled in Panama City, Panama, on March 21st. In his baggage he will carry hopes of new sales around the world.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
