Brazilian Bank Invests Overseas to Win U.S. Markets

Brazil’s National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) made its first disbursement from a credit line for foreign investments by Brazilian companies. The credit line was instituted in 2002, but the first loan was made only last month.

According to the bank’s president, Guido Mantega, the program will help Brazilian companies compete abroad on equal terms with foreign corporations.


The first Brazilian firm to be benefitted by the internationalization support program was the Frigoboi meatpacking company, which received a loan from the BNDES of approximately US$ 30 million (70 million reais) to acquire majority control of the Argentinean Swift Armour company.


As a result, according to Mantega, Frigoboi gained access to a meat-processing technology that does not exist in Brazil and new markets, such as the US, and began to sell processed meat.


“In this phase of globalization, it is very important for Brazilian companies to compete for markets here and abroad on equal terms with other companies, especially in segments in which Brazil has demonstrated comparative advantages.


“This means that Brazilian firms must build muscles and compete abroad. It is not enough to be efficient locally,” Mantega affirmed during the Getúlio Vargas Foundation’s 2nd Economics Forum, which took place Tuesday, September 13, in the capital of São Paulo.


“The BNDES created a line of financial support for these operations, which must produce an increase in the trade surplus. They have to result in market liberalization and, therefore, a greater trade surplus,” Mantega says.


According to the president of the BNDES, the chief beneficiaries of the internationalization support program will be companies that export finished goods.


“There exists an international competition nowadays that implies quota obstacles and tariff barriers, and you are obliged to have Brazilian subsidiaries abroad, or else you don’t have entry to local markets.


“A flagrant example of this is in the steel sector, where everybody protects the market for finished goods. Brazil is thus limited to exporting iron ore and semi-finished items.”


Agência Brasil

Tags:

You May Also Like

Brazil’s Petrobras Wants to Invest More in Colombia

At a meeting in Bogota on Tuesday, April 19, with the President of Colombia, ...

Brazil Billboard at a Newsstand Close to You in Brazil

With singer-composer Roberto Carlos in the cover, US-based publication Billboard has just launched Billboard ...

Brazil and Uruguay Ready to Forgo Dollar and Do Business in Real and Peso

Brazil and Uruguay have plans to have bilateral trade operations in their respective local ...

UN Borrows Inclusion Programs from Brazil

Brazil’s social inclusion programs in the area of sports – Gaining (“Painting”) Freedom and ...

Brazil Justice Fines Priest for Saying Pro-Abortion Woman Is Pro-Abortion

A panel of judges in BrasÀ­lia, the Brazilian capital, has ordered a Catholic priest ...

West of Nothing

But who was is talking about exterminating, Father? Who? Who talked about this? You ...

With Iran World Needs Patience Not Pressure, Says Brazil’s Lula in Germany

Ten days after the visit the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, paid Brazil, the ...

Candombé ceremony in Brazil

In Brazil You Dance to Play and You Dance to Pray

There are few countries around the world in which dance takes a center stage ...

Brazil Breaks Several Economic Records

All the variables relative to Brazilian industry researched by the National Confederation of Industry ...

Robin Sparks in Brazil

I’m Having Fun Trying to Be a Brazilian

I’d been to every country on my list except for one, Brazil. The Brazil ...