Brazil investment promotion agency seeks partners from Japan and Singapore

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Over the last two years, seven Israeli companies have made partnerships with Brazilian companies after being prospected by the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) and are developing activities in the country.

The agency’s initiative is part of the ScaleUp in Brazil program. This project selects technology startups from other countries and will start receiving companies from Japan and Singapore.

Apex-Brasil is part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE) and currently supports 15 thousand companies in 80 sectors of the Brazilian economy. Among the new partners are the Japan External Trade Organization (Jetro), an organization linked to the Japanese government, and Enterprise Singapore, the government agency that promotes business development in Singapore.

According to Sergio Rossi, Apex-Brasil’s Investment Coordinator, the program aims at increasing the participation of foreign companies: “The goal for the third edition is to receive 20 participating companies, divided between Israel, which was already a partner, Japan, and Singapore.”

“The methodology we developed to select the partner countries takes into account several factors, with one of the main ones being that the government is listed among the 20 leading economies in the Global Innovation Index, a ranking of the World Intellectual Property Organization that measures each country’s level of technology”, explains Rossi.

The program focuses on small and medium-sized companies that innovate in different sectors and set up operations in Brazil. A project committee analyzes the potential of companies to offer solutions to the domestic market.