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 Brazil's Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae) and the Bank of Brazil (BB) have signed an agreement for technical cooperation, aiming to expand the share of micro and small companies in foreign trade. The goal is to offer a package of solutions and reach 2,000 companies by the end of 2010.
The agreement was signed by Sebrae president Paulo Okamotto, the technical director at the organization, Luiz Carlos Barboza, the foreign trade director of the BB, Nilo José Panazzolo, and the bank's director for micro and small companies, Ary Joel Lanzarin, in Brazilian capital Brasília.
The agreement aims to develop activities in consultancy, training and guidance for internationalization processes, as well as access to foreign-market oriented financial services focusing on the micro and small businesses that are part of the Sebrae Internationalization Program.
The companies will have access to information that will include electronic commerce, the red tape required for exporting, logistics, price formation, rating of goods, modes of payment, and exchange rates.
Joint actions will also be held to detect which international markets are priorities in terms of company insertion, and to promote the exchange of information, studies and databases, so as to enable an increase in the number of micro and small companies serviced by the Sebrae and the Bank of Brazil.
"We are going to meet with the businessmen and bring to them information ranging from what type of document they need in order to export to how to locate an importer abroad that may become a client," guaranteed the foreign trade director of the BB, Nilo José Panazzolo.
The companies involved will be able to use the Sebrae Guarantee Fund (Fampe) as a guarantee for obtaining funding from the Bank of Brazil. The Fampe guarantees up to 80% of the value of a given operation. The Bank of Brazil should extend to the segment some of its services, such as the Export Financing Program (Proex) and the Foreign Trade Counter, its Internet-based business system.
According to Nilo Panazzolo, the bank is going to announce new features of this system, making negotiations easier, particularly to micro and small businesses.
The technical director of the Sebrae, Luiz Carlos Barboza, reminded that the goal of reaching 2,000 companies by the end of 2010 represents more than 10% of the total number of micro and small exporting businesses in the country. To him, the partnership is an innovative mode of operation for the segment. The experience is expected to give rise to "much bolder programs coupling training and financial services together to benefit micro and small businesses."
The micro and small business director of the BB, Ary Joel Lanzarin, stated that only 18,000 micro and small companies, from a total of 6 million in Brazil, are present in the international market, and that the effort is an opportunity to raise that figure "by increasing the competitiveness of those companies in the international market."
According to the Market Access manager of the Sebrae, Wang Ching, "the actions will start right now." She explained that in order to participate in the actions, the companies must fill out the self-diagnosis form of the Internationalization Program for micro and small businesses, in order to assess their potential for internationalization.
The form is available at the Sebrae portal, at www.internacionalizacao.sebrae.com.br. After filling out the form, a visit to the Sebrae must be scheduled.
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