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São Paulo – The National Export Plan launched this Wednesday (24th) by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade and by president Dilma Rousseff names 32 countries as priority markets to be entered, developed, maintained, or recovered, including Arab countries the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Algeria. There are also five countries in Europe, three in North America (including the United States), Cuba, in Latin America, eight countries in South America, four in Asia, Australia, two other Middle East countries, and four in Africa. <\/p>\n
One of the most relevant measures announced is a US$ 15 billion to Fundo de Garantia às Exportações (FGE), the fund that guarantees exports. This is part of one of the pillars on which the plan is based: export financing and guarantees. <\/p>\n
The plan is underpinned by four other strategies, namely access to markets, trade promotion, trade facilitation, and improvement of fiscal mechanisms and regimes to support foreign sales. According to the Brazilian minister Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Armando Monteiro, the new package is in line with the global trend of growing international trade. The plan was outlined in partnership with the private sector, and based on queries made to sectoral organizations during meetings held from January on. <\/p>\n
“The global trade growth rate far exceeds the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Considering this, there is a clear-cut opportunity to launch this initiative, consubstantiated into a plan. The international market offers us more opportunities than risks. We have space to fill up. A GDP tantamount to 32 Brazils outside our borders, and 97% of the consumer market is out there,” the minister said. <\/p>\n
Rousseff said Brazil cannot settle for ranking 25th in global trade, and that it must take advantage of the favorable exchange rate to build exports. “The goal is to increase our share in global trade. Through the export-friendly exchange rate, through bold diplomatic action, through determined commercial action, and through the measures in this plan, we will make foreign trade into the core element of our economic competitiveness agenda,” she said.<\/p>\n
One of the goals is to increase exports by incrementing the number of businesses involved with foreign trade, including a higher participation from micro, small and medium businesses and portfolio diversification, through the addition of more technology products, higher agribusiness exports, and recovery of finished goods exports. The strategy features actions specifically tailored to include different regions of the country in the process. <\/p>\n
In an interview published on the federal government website this Wednesday, Monteiro said the plan could double exports in the medium term. One of the goals is to have it help create employment and income in Brazil. The minister said in the interview that for every US$ 1 billion exported, 50,000 people are directly or indirectly employed. Exporting companies also pay the best salaries. <\/p>\n
The trade policy for the market access pillar will focus on increasing the number of buying markets by eliminating barriers, joining bilateral, regional, and multilateral trade agreement networks, and negotiating taxes.<\/p>\n
For the trade promotion pillar, the Ministry intelligence arm listed markets with a demand for Brazilian products, enumerating 32 countries that consume Brazilian products at satisfactory levels. The map of the countries will guide actions in a unified calendar for missions from the government’s foreign trade-oriented organizations. <\/p>\n
Trade facilitation, another pillar, is intended to reduce red tape, simplify, rationalize, and improve the administrative and customs processes involved in international trade, so as to cut costs and times. In the export financing and guarantees pillar, the goal is to improve existing instruments. In the final pillar, the objective is to streamline and improve the foreign trade tax system.<\/p>\n
Besides Rousseff and Monteiro, the Brazilian vice president Michel Temer, the minister and chief of staff Aloizio Mercadante, and other high-ranking government officials were present at the plan’s announcement.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n