Government will relieve the footwear of the footwear, textile and furniture sectors

O Globo - 02/08/2011

The footwear, textile and furniture industries - three of the most affected by the melting of the dollar against the real - are among the sectors benefiting from the reduction in the sector's payroll, one of the flagships of the new industrial policy, as O GLOBO anticipated yesterday. The plan, which will be called Brasil Maior and will be announced this morning at the Planalto Palace, will also bring between R $ 450 billion and R $ 500 billion in BNDES financing between 2011 and 2014, tax cuts for the purchase of machinery, defense measures commercial and incentive to the automotive sector.

President Dilma Rousseff led the government's coordination meeting yesterday, with the presence of leaders in Congress, in which details of the new industrial policy were closed. The program will be the first in a “good news sequence”. Dilma told her interlocutors that she intends to announce new measures every week in August, to escape the mark of immobility due to political crises. Next week, it will be the turn to increase the Supersimples tracks through a complementary bill.

The union centrals were called to the Planalto Palace yesterday to be introduced to the program by five ministers: Gilberto Carvalho (General Secretariat), Guido Mantega (Finance), Fernando Pimentel (Development), Garibaldi Alves (Social Security) and Aloizio Mercadante (Science and Technology ). However, they left there stating that they will not participate today in the launching ceremony of the plan because, in the opinion of the union members, they were excluded from the elaboration of the project. They also complain that yesterday's meeting did not present details of Brasil Maior, only concepts.

- It is absurd because four months ago we said that we wanted to discuss the exemption of payroll - said the president of CUT, Artur Henrique.

On the way out, the president of the Central Geral dos Trabalhadores do Brasil (CGTB), Antonio Neto, confirmed the sectoral exemption from the payroll and said that the textile and footwear sectors should be considered. The software and information technology segments may also be included, according to a source. According to Neto, part of the exemption will be on the companies' billing. There will also be a monitoring commission until December 2012 to assess the return of the measure.

The unionist also confirmed that the government will encourage purchases made by government agencies to favor national products.

Plan will combat import fraud

The new industrial policy should also provide guidelines for tightening trade defense strategies. The taxation of some imported products may be imposed. There is guidance from Dilma to find ways to contain the so-called triangulation. Countries like China, when they have surcharged products, make their shipments from other markets, to circumvent the punishment.

The government will focus on a relatively recent practice of unfair competition with Brazilian industries: the falsification of certificates of origin. The reinforcement in the area of ​​commercial defense, with the hiring of at least one hundred more investigators, as proposed in discussion last night, is precisely to face the problem more directly.

The release of BNDES money to finance projects that involve foreign companies will be tied to the requirement to transfer technology to Brazil, as the Chinese do. The technological transfer to Brazilian companies is also one of the conditions for the reduction of taxes and contributions. But the exchanges did not like the plan.

- The speech is very good, but that was it. There is nothing new - said the president of Força Sindical, Paulo Pereira da Silva, Paulinho. - We think that the government has to put heavy protection barriers and create indexes of nationalization of parts and products.

In the new industrial policy, targets for December 2014 will be set, such as reducing the trade deficit in industrialized items by 40% and increasing the investment rate from 18% to 23% of GDP.