Through its International Trade Chamber (CAMEX), the Brazilian government has released new resolutions reducing the import tax rates of 217 different types of industrial equipments and machinery not produced nationally.

As an attempt to promote domestic industrial and production growth, capital goods such as engines, pumps and machines, and several products for the ITC sector have had their import tax rates reduced from 16% down to 2% through the special customs regime Ex-Tarifário. 

The special regime allows temporary import rates reduction of manufactured items which are not produced by the national industry. Private initiative can also file requests for specific products.

The complete list of the applicable NCMs and further legislation are available in the Portuguese language through the following links:

• Capital goods: Camex Resolution No. 17/2013
  
• ITC goods: Camex Resolution No. 18/2013
  
• Ex-Tarifário: Camex Resolution No. 17/2012
  

The special Brazilian customs regime REPETRO allows companies to import specific equipments to be used in research and exploitation of oil and natural gas fields, with the exemption of federal taxes such as the following:

• II - Import tax;
• IPI - Excise tax;
• PIS - Contribution to the social inclusion program;
• COFINS - Contribution to the social security financing;
• AFRMM - Additional freight for the renewal of the merchant navy.

The goods which REPETRO may be applied to are listed under the sole appendix of the Normative Resolution RFB 844. The resolution determines the general ruling of the special fiscal regime, including licensing requirements and conditions.

In general, the regime may be applied to a) Fictitious exporting of equipment, when it is bought from a national supplier by a foreign company in order to be used in national territory. In this case, the product is re-imported under “temporary admission” conditions; b) Temporary admission to products bought from national suppliers by the national licensee; and c) The Drawback regime, applied to the importing of industrial supplies for the production of goods destined to fictitious exporting.

Further legislation details may be found at the following Federal Reserve site:

• REPETRO legislation structure

The Oil and Gas industry in Brazil may now expect the eleventh round of fields exploitation, as it has been announced by the National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) after a meeting between President Dilma Rousseff and Edson Lobão, the Minister of Mines and Energy, held on January 10, 2013.

Public bidding announcements are expected to be released next May, 2013 for the offering of 172 land and ocean fields, divided in 17 sectors among nine sedimentary basins: Barreirinhas, Ceará, Parnaíba, Espírito Santo, Foz do Amazonas, Pará-Maranhão, Potiguar, Recôncavo and Sergipe-Alagoas.

• Complete bidding schedule
  
• Offered areas
• Tender Protocol

Detailed information is available in English at the official website Brasil-Round 11, from the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP).

The Brazilian Public Energy Bidding A-5/2012 took place in December 14th, 2012 for the contracting of projects in response to the 2017 electricity demand forecast appointed by national energy distributors.

Twelve projects were contemplated, being two hydroelectric generation plants and ten wind farms, totaling 574,3 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity. Contracts of purchasing/sale of electricity will be negotiated and will have 20 years of duration for wind farms and 30 years for the hydroelectric plants.

The states which will receive the projects are AP - Amapá (2 hydroelectric plants), BA - Bahia (2 wind farms), MA - Maranhão (7 wind farms) and RS - Rio Grande do Sul (1 wind farm). The companies that were granted the contracts were Bioenergy, Enel Green Power, Enerfin, Renova, and EDP.

More information can be found in the following documents, available in Portuguese. Please note that EPE is the governmental Enterprise of Energetic Research in Brazil and CCEE is the Brazilian Chamber of Commercialization of Electric Energy.

• EPE Press Release
• CCEE winning projects details

The Drawback Regime was created in 1996 by the Brazilian government with the purpose of suspending import taxes of raw material intended to the manufacturing of exporting goods. Legislation has improved over time and today the regime can also be applied to raw material bought within the domestic market, as long as the production is bound to exports.

Tax suspension is applied to the following taxes: Import Taxation (II); Industrialized Product Taxation (IPI); Contributions to the Social Inclusion Program, Formation of Public Servant Patrimony and Social Security Financing (PIS/Pasep/Cofins); Additional Freight for the Renewal of the Merchant Navy (AFRMM); and Circulation of Goods and Services Taxation (ICMS).

In order to adopt the Drawback Regime, the company needs to be licensed for international trade operations (Radar) by the Brazilian Federal Reserve and file a request within SECEX (Federal Secretariat of International Trade),assuming the commitment of exporting production after transforming the raw material which is to be applied to the program. SECEX will then authorize the purchase of the raw material either from the domestic or foreign markets. This operation is registered through SISCOMEX, the Brazilian Integrated International Trade System utilized for all national import/export operations control.

The Drawback tax exemption regime may be applied to product transformation, processing, assembly and renovation or refurbishing of exports from any economic segment. Company may also file a request to purchase tax exempt raw material that is intended to replace inventory that has been used for the production of previously exported goods. The company benefiting from the regime may not necessarily be the company exporting the product, whereas it can be exported by an intermediary company such as a trading company or another manufacturing company that has used the product for further complex production.

More information can be found through the following links:

• Drawback Integrado official brochure (Portuguese)
• Drawback Legislation (Portuguese)
• Introduction to Drawback (Portuguese)
• How to Export to Brazil (Page 51, English)

Aldeota Global has been added to the Brazilian photovoltaic supply chain map as an organization focused in international investment attraction and institutional relations for solar project development. The partnership between the Institute for Renewable Energy in Latin America (IDEAL), the German Cooperation for International Sustainable Development (GIZ) and the KfW German Financing Group has launched the photovoltaic supply chain map of Brazil, through America do Sol’s website, built to promote the solar energy market in the country.

With a concentration of suppliers in the southeastern region of the country, Brasil has immense potential for its solar market growth, particularly in the northeastern region, due to its shortage of hydroelectricity generation sources mostly common in the national grid and its intense radiation levels all year round. Northeastern states such as Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte are national leaders in alternative energy production, a position conquered by the installation of many coastal wind farms in the last decade or so.

As far as solar, Ceará is the home of the first commercial photovoltaic plant of Latin America, a project led by Eike Batista’s MPX in partnership with Inter-American Development Bank (BID) that has attracted the attention of many international players in the sector. The limitation of the photovoltaic market growth in the country is the lack of a manufacturing unit in national territory, which makes the importing of equipment a cost increasing factor, and also the regulatory structure which is still under its initial steps for adapting the grid connected model to the national system.

The Brazilian Exporters Directory is an important database that can help identify international partnerships and spread information on Brazilian exports. It is a tool for promoting Brazilian export capacity and can be used for prospecting opportunities and business in Brazil.

The Directory is published in three languages - Portuguese, English, and Spanish - and provides a valuable source of information for Brazilian and foreign organizations that are interested in international cooperation. It is also an essential research tool for diplomatic representations and for international companies that are interested in increasing their business, partnerships, and investments with Brazilian companies.

This article was extracted in its entirely from the directory’s website, which can be accessed at www.brazil4export.com.

The Brazilian National Social and Economic Development Bank (BNDES) is the main federal institution providing financing solutions for long term investment projects in all sectors of the economy, acquisition of industrial machinery and equipments, exports of national goods and services, and capital structuring for private enterprises. As part of its 2009-2014 Plan, BNDES promotes strong corporate policies on giving emphasis to the aspects of innovation, local and regional development and environmental and social responsibility of all its supported initiatives.

The financial support is negotiated either directly (BNDES and entrepreneur) or indirectly (through a formal financing agent such as The Bank of Brazil or other regional banks), and conducted in respect to the size of the enterprises, defined according to its annual gross operating revenues as follows: Micro (R$ 2,4mi), Small (R$ 16mi), Medium (R$ 90mi), Medium - Large (R$ 300mi), Large (over R$ 300mi).

BNDES has specific products and programs to support exporting and internationalization of Brazilian ventures. Among the main productsout stands BNDES Exim, which is a financing line that supports production of goods and services that are intended for commercialization in international markets, and BNDES Finem, which is a financing line for the amount of over R$ 10mi for implementation of projects of expansion and modernization of enterprises, internationalization and acquisition of machinery and equipments.

The United Nations continues its tremendous efforts in keeping the sustainable development governance strategysynchronizedto a global scale. The information in this article was received from the UN Division on Sustainable Development, directed to the major groups. The material is especially interesting for institutions building internal policies and business strategies on Sustainable Development, Corporate Responsibility, Corporate Citizenship, Social and Environmental Responsibility. For more information, please read the following:

Rio+20, one of the largest conferences ever convened by the United Nations, ushers in a new era for implementing sustainable development. The Conference was a rare opportunity for the world to focus on sustainability issues - to examine ideas, forge partnerships and solutions.

There were several outcomes to the Rio+20 Conference. The political outcome, The Future We Want, agreed to by all 193 countries, charts the way forward for international cooperation on sustainable development. In addition, governments, businesses and other civil society partners registered more than 700 commitments to concrete actions that will deliver results on the ground to address specific needs, such as sustainable energy and transport.

In the follow-up to Rio+20, a new website has been launched; the Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform (SDKP). The platform contain information pertaining to the past nineteen years of normative and analytical work of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), a wealth of content from the preparatory process of Rio+20, and is the go to place for the Rio+20 follow-up.

More information in the following pages:

• Rio+20 outcome document, The Future We Want 
• Follow-up to Rio+20 
• Interactive matrix on Rio+20 outcomes.
• Partnerships for Sustainable Development
• Newly launched registry of Voluntary Commitments 
• Sustainable Development in action 
• Read up on a wide range of Sustainable Development related topics/areas

The Brazilian Federal Secretariat for International Trade launched a national public call on the negotiations for Free Trade Agreements between Mercosur and the European Union and Canada.

According to Tatiana Prazeres, the head Secretary of SECEX since January of 2011, the prompt actions of consulting the private sector for opinion position update in the subject is in response to clear orientations given by Minister Fernando Pimentel and other ministers from the Federal Chamber of International Trade CAMEX to conduct such negotiations with plenty offer of acknowledgement and opportunities for manifestation from the private sector.

Through this process, representative associations and entities from the Brazilian private sector will have sixty days, starting from the day that the call was released in the Official Diary of the Union (Oct.26th), to send information on which NCMs they represent, followed by suggestions and justification on the maximum period for tariff elimination. They may also send information on which NCMs should be left out of the FTA.

Free Trade Agreement between Mercosur and the European Union has been undergoing negotiations since 1999, butinterruptedfrom 2004 until 2010, when they regained bilateral interest. Negotiations between Mercosur and Canada are not yet in course, but an FTA between the parties has been under prospection by representatives. Further information can be found in Portuguese in the following official link.