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Among the 1,020 Brazilian companies that started exporting last year, around 900, or 88%, are micro and small. This information was supplied by the director of the Department of Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Development, Edson Lupatini Júnior.
This figure reveals the importance that foreign trade gained last year. This is so true that the quantity of companies that started selling outside Brazil in 2004 was well above that in 2003, when 336 companies entered foreign trade.
"This shows that the policy of support mechanisms that the federal government has been establishing aimed at increasing the export base is correct," stated Lupatini. Brazil had revenues of US$ 96.5 billion with exports in 2004, an increase of 32% over 2003.
According to Lupatini, the year of 2004 also marked the expansion of destinations, products and export regions. Eight countries showed expressive growth in imports of Brazilian products, among them Liberia, Sudan, Cyprus, Malta and Poland.
The addition of new products to the trade basket, according to the director, represented revenues of almost US$ 1 billion in the Brazilian trade balance.
Most of the articles are manufactured, with machinery for moulding rubber, presses for extrusion of metals, cranes for towers, machinery for iron processing, medications, wind powered electric generators, and instruments and equipment for telecommunications.
From Brazil
The 2004 balance also shows greater trade of different products from different regions, adding to the Southeast and South, which are the largest exporters.
Part of this, according to Lupatini, is the result of the State Exporter project, through which the federal government provides incentives to the increase of exports from states where they do not exceed US$ 100 million.
Acre, Amapá, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins, all northern states, Mato Grosso and Distrito Federal, in the Midwest, Maranhão and Rio Grande do Norte, both in the Northeast, which participate in the program, managed to exceed these revenues and have now been given another target, US$ 500 million. The project will also cover other states this year.
According to Lupatini, almost all the Brazilian states increased their exports. Sixteen states had export increases over the country average, which was 32%, in 2004.
The only state where there was a decrease was Amazonas, in the North of the country, due to the increase in consumption of mobile phones on the domestic market.
Lupatini clarified, however, that removing these goods, which are the main product exported by the state, the increase in state exports was 26%.
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