By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – The government of Brazil announced this week its National Export Plan (PNE) with the objective of increasing Brazilian exports to help the country’s ailing economy. According to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, companies should take advantage of the favorable foreign exchange rate to increase their export volumes to those countries already buying Brazilian products and to find new markets for their goods.
Rousseff also said she could not accept the fact that the country was placed 25th in the ranking of foreign trade volumes. “The seventh economy in the world should not accept being 25th ranked in international trade,” said Rousseff during the event. “We will implement, along with the productive sector, a set of measures to expand and boost our exports.”
According to Armando Monteiro, Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade the export plan will go a long way to help Brazil’s economy during this time of ‘harsh fiscal adjustments’. “Foreign trade is a priority today,” said Monteiro on Thursday, June 25th speaking to the Senate’s Commission on Foreign Relations and National Defense.
The government’s new export plan is based on five pillars: access to markets, commercial marketing, ease of trade, export financing guarantees and the improvement of the fiscal system related to foreign trade.
Rousseff said that her administration would adopt commercial and diplomatic measures to expand and diversify foreign markets for the Brazilian products. This means more official trips abroad, like the one she will be taking next week to the United States.
Included in the measures of the export plan are new tariff accords and negotiations for the withdrawal of barriers for Brazilian products around the world. “The order of the day is to expand our participation in the global market. With diplomatic and commercial actions we will make foreign trade a central element of our economy’s agenda,” she said.
According to the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, exports today represent twenty percent of Brazil’s GDP. “There is still a great deal of room [to expand] so that Brazil may occupy a more important role in the international market,” said Minister Monteiro.