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The government of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, plans to increase the number of companies in the state that export by at least 50% next year. In the last two years, a total of 8,400 companies from the state of São Paulo sold on the foreign market.
So as to make this number grow, the state Secretariat of Science, Technology, Economic Development and Tourism developed three programs to help companies export in 2005, especially micro, small and medium companies.
"The state government has made exports a priority as they are a faster and more effective tool for job and income generation," stated Flávio Musa, special Foreign Relations and Trade advisor for the secretariat.
According to him, all the projects developed by the organization open opportunities for the expansion of the state export base. "There are innovative and practical projects," he said.
The first program is "São Paulo Space", which provides companies that do not have financial conditions to participate in international fairs.
The state government, with private partnerships, is going to sponsor trips by micro, small and medium companies to foreign events.
The project is forecasted to begin next year, but a pilot experiment has already taken place in 2004. In all, 20 companies from the state of São Paulo participated in Montpellier International Fair, in France.
"We had very interesting results. Furniture and beach fashion sales were made, and two companies signed contracts with Galeries Lafayette" - www.galerieslafayette.com, stated Musa, referring to the famous store in the French capital, Paris.
Another program, already in operation, is the "Paulista Exporter Catalogue", a free service for all companies to be able to list and exhibit the products they would like to export on the Internet.
Businessmen interested should fill out a simple form, containing basic information regarding the company and its products. The space also permits the posting of three photographs.
"This catalogue is a tool to give visibility to thousands of companies that have products to export," stated Musa.
He believes that, up to the end of next year, a significant number of companies will enrol for the government to transform the catalogues into CDs, to be distributed by chambers of commerce, embassies and at fairs.
"The sooner companies sign up, the sooner we will distribute the CDs," he added.
The third program, "Exporta São Paulo", is a partnership between the secretariat and Commercial Associations in the state of São Paulo and the São Paulo Chamber of Commerce, an export promotion organization belonging to the Commercial Association of São Paulo.
This project consists of inviting businessmen to participate in seminars, covering themes related to export, followed by business meetings between companies and traders.
"When companies enrol to participate in the seminar, data about their company is crossed with that of traders. In this way, the interviews are scheduled in advance," explained Musa. In all, there should be 15 events of the kind.
São Paulo Exports Grew 36%
Apart from the three programs developed by the secretariat, the state government has inaugurated the Center of Services to the Exporter (CAE), in partnership with the Brazilian Mercantile and Future's Exchange (BM&F), whose objective is to assist exporters, and the Center of Export Logistics (Celex), which aims at supplying all the public services necessary for export in one place. The Celex, however, is not yet totally operational.
"With these actions we have already had an increase in the number of companies that export and an increase in state exports," stated Musa.
The state of São Paulo exported the equivalent to US$ 28 billion in the period between January and November 2004, which represents a growth of 36% when compared to the same period last year.
Exports from the state of São Paulo represented 32.1% of total Brazilian exports in the first 11 months of the year, which totalled US$ 87.2 billion.
ANBA – Brazil-Arab News Agency
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