Brazil promotes today and tomorrow, November 22 and 23, the 27th National Foreign Trade Conference (Enaex) to be held at Hotel Glória, in the southeastern Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. This year's theme will be "Evaluation of the Brazilian policy on foreign trade: an export policy in a scenario of international crisis."
The Brazilian Foreign Trade Association (AEB), in charge of organizing the event, elaborated an agenda of measures aimed at increasing the competitiveness of Brazil in the foreign market.
To the organization, "foreign trade is a strategic and hegemonic tool for promoting economic and social development," and Brazil loses competitiveness due to problems such as red tape, excessive taxes, complex tax collection and labor systems, and shortcomings in infrastructure and transport logistics.
In order to discuss those and other issues, public sector representatives were invited such as the executive secretary at the Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Ivan Ramalho and the Foreign Trade secretary, Welber Barral.
Other officials expected include the executive secretary at the Foreign Trade Board (Camex), Lytha Spíndola, the undersecretary general for Economic Affairs at the Brazilian foreign office (Itamaraty), Roberto Carvalho de Azevedo, the Special Ports minister, Pedro Brito Nascimento, the International Business vice-president at the Bank of Brazil, José Maria Rabelo, the president at the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil), Alessandro Teixeira, and the minister of Finance, Guido Mantega.
Private sector participants should include the president at the AEB, Benedicto Fonseca Moreira, the vice-president at the organization, José Augusto de Castro, the foreign Relations vice-president at the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer, Henrique Costa Rzezinski and the superintendent at the Brazilian Association of Ceramic Tile Manufacturers (Anfacer), Antônio Carlos Kieling.
Plus the president at the São Paulo Sugar Cane Agroindustry Union (Unica), Marcos Jank, the president at the Brazilian Beef Industry and Exporters Association (Abiec), Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes, and the president at the Brazilian Chemical Industry Association (Abiquim), Carlos Mariani Bittencourt.
In the sidelines, public and private organizations that operate in the foreign trade sector are going to have stands at the hotel to receive the participants. Such is the case with Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, which will have a 14-square-meter institutional space, and two employees.
They will provide explanations about the services offered by the organization, clarify doubts raised by the exporters, talk about the Arab market, and distribute promotional material.
Still during the event, the AEB is going to distribute the 2007 Foreign Trade Highlight Award, which will be granted to Embraer in the "leading exporter" category, to Sadia in the cattle-raising field and to Bunge Alimentos in the agriculture field.
Other prize winners are Caterpillar Brasil in the capital goods sector, Volkswagen Brazil in the durable consumer goods field, Paquetá Calçados in the "market conquest" category and Marisol Indústria do Vestuário in the "small and medium exporter" category.
Add to that, Bank of Brazil in the "technological highlight" category, Log-In Logística Intermodal for logistics, GE Celma as services exporter, JBS S.A. in foreign trade management, Apex-Brasil for support to exports, Tupy Fundições for social responsibility, and Grupo Gerdau in the "company internationalization" category.
Further information
Anba