Source: Monitor Mercantil, 08/06/04

The informal economy has reached an alarming level of dissemination in Brazil: four out of six jobs are informal. It created “a harmful environment of generalized civil disobedience”, highlighted Emerson Kapaz, president of the NGO Instituto Brasileiro de Ética Concorrencial - ETCO.
An effective program to encourage formal employment and discourage the informal economy could generate an extra GDP growth of 1,5% per year and GDP per capita of up to 7% per year.

These were some of the information presented yesterday in São Paulo during the Brazil Parallel x Economic Growth seminar. Promoted by ETCO, the seminar had as speakers the Secretary of Economic Policy of the Ministry of Finance, Marcos Lisboa; the secretary of Economic Law, Daniel Goldberg, the governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alkmin, and businessman Abílio Diniz, of the Pão de Açúcar group.

Professor Eduardo Giannetti da Fonseca, from the University of São Paulo, highlighted the importance of combating the informal economy for what it represents in social exclusion and economic damage.