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The president of the Brazilian Export Promotion Agency (Apex), Juan Quirós, signed February 21 an agreement with the Society for the Promotion of Excellence in Brazilian Software (Softex) for the conquest of new markets.
Among them are the United Arab Emirates, United States, Germany, Japan and others. "Brazil is the sixth largest software market in the world," stated Quirós.
Up to now, 100 Brazilian companies have joined the Integrated Sector Program for Export of Software and Correlated Services (PSI-SW), which has as its target the export of at least US$ 16 million in software up to the end of 2005.
In all, investment will total US$ 4.6 million, being around US$ 1.8 million invested by the Apex, and around US$ 2.8 million by the Softex and private companies. The main objective of the PSI-SW is to organize and prepare domestic companies to compete on the foreign market.
According to Quirós, there are few countries that recognize Brazilian software. "What is most important about this project is the attempt to incorporate the products to foreign markets," he said. "It is necessary to show that Brazil is also a software producer," he added.
Djalma Petit, the coordinator of the Softex, also believes that it is necessary to strengthen the Brazilian brand in this respect. "There is a weakness in the Brazilian brand in the sector," he said.
The sectors involved are turned to the areas of health, banking automation, telecommunications, data security, logistics, Internet in general, electronic government and business management.
Of the 100 small and medium companies enrolled in the project, 30 already export and declare that they sold approximately US$ 11 million last year. Among the main markets are the United States, Mexico and Spain.
According to Petit, apart from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are also markets with good potential for the import of Brazilian software. "The Emirates are used as a hub for sale to other countries in the region," he said.
Sector
According to the information supplied by a spokesperson for Softex, Brazil is shown as a new focus for world attention in the IT (Information Technology) sector.
This year, the sector should export around US$ 500 million in information products and, up to 2007, the target is to reach US$ 2 billion.
The country counts on around 5,400 software companies, which generate over 158,000 direct jobs. The software sector represents 0.71% of the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and answers to around 50% of the IT sector.
According to Quirós, the world software market has a turnover of approximately US$ 700 billion, being US$ 100 billion in products and US$ 600 billion in services.
Translated by Mark Ament
ANBA – Brazil-Arab News Agency
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