São Paulo –Brazil needs around R$ 44 billion (US$ 19,7 bilhões) in private investments for the next ten years to expand and modernize the current port terminals and also to build new ones. Meanwhile, the bureaucratic obstacles and lack of infrastructure create losses of over US$ 5 billion per year to the country in goods export and import.

The information is provided by Wilen Manteli, president of the Brazilian Association of Port Terminals (ABTP, in the Portuguese acronym), who delivered the workshop “The new regulatory framework of the Brazilian ports”, this Wednesday (16th), at the head office of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, in São Paulo. At the event, he was welcomed by the organization’s CEO, Michel Alaby.

Manteli recalled that, currently, Brazil only has 34 public ports and 129 private terminals, and the latter moved almost 70% of the cargo in the country. In 2013, Brazil moved 931 million tonnes of goods via ports.

“For 2014, we are projecting to reach 960 million tonnes and, in 2015, we should reach one billion tonnes”, he pointed out. “There is a sense of urgency in creating new terminals”, he said.

For the president of ABTP, however, it is also important to focus on building new terminals in regions such as North and Northeast. “There are 50 tonnes of soy and maize that come from the country’s central region and they should be transported via Pará, Maranhão, which are closer, rather than by truck to Santos, Paranaguá and Rio Grande”, he said.

He also criticized the excessive paperwork required for the construction of new terminals in the country. “There is an excess of public bodies that interfere in the port activity. There are many bodies and not one that is definitive. One of our proposals is to unify these sectors. If we had the Secretariat for Ports, which handles the public policies of the ports, and the National Water Transport Agency (Antaq) to oversee and regulate, it would be enough”, he said.

According to the executive, the port situation could only be improved by the privative initiative “To develop (the port system), the option is always private terminals, public ones suffer too much intervention”, he pointed out.

Manteli also stressed the need for the businessmen to mobilize so that improvements will be made in the sector’s regulatory framework, as, according to him, the businessmen kept away during the passing of law 12.815/2013, which introduced new rules for the ports and their operations. “We are starting a process of regrouping the business entities. We want to introduce changes to perfect the regulatory framework.”

*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça

São Paulo –Brazil needs around R$ 44 billion (US$ 19,7 bilhões) in private investments for the next ten years to expand and modernize the current port terminals and also to build new ones. Meanwhile, the bureaucratic obstacles and lack of infrastructure create losses of over US$ 5 billion per year to the country in goods export and import.

The information is provided by Wilen Manteli, president of the Brazilian Association of Port Terminals (ABTP, in the Portuguese acronym), who delivered the workshop “The new regulatory framework of the Brazilian ports”, this Wednesday (16th), at the head office of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, in São Paulo. At the event, he was welcomed by the organization’s CEO, Michel Alaby.

Manteli recalled that, currently, Brazil only has 34 public ports and 129 private terminals, and the latter moved almost 70% of the cargo in the country. In 2013, Brazil moved 931 million tonnes of goods via ports.

“For 2014, we are projecting to reach 960 million tonnes and, in 2015, we should reach one billion tonnes”, he pointed out. “There is a sense of urgency in creating new terminals”, he said.

For the president of ABTP, however, it is also important to focus on building new terminals in regions such as North and Northeast. “There are 50 tonnes of soy and maize that come from the country’s central region and they should be transported via Pará, Maranhão, which are closer, rather than by truck to Santos, Paranaguá and Rio Grande”, he said.

He also criticized the excessive paperwork required for the construction of new terminals in the country. “There is an excess of public bodies that interfere in the port activity. There are many bodies and not one that is definitive. One of our proposals is to unify these sectors. If we had the Secretariat for Ports, which handles the public policies of the ports, and the National Water Transport Agency (Antaq) to oversee and regulate, it would be enough”, he said.

According to the executive, the port situation could only be improved by the privative initiative “To develop (the port system), the option is always private terminals, public ones suffer too much intervention”, he pointed out.

Manteli also stressed the need for the businessmen to mobilize so that improvements will be made in the sector’s regulatory framework, as, according to him, the businessmen kept away during the passing of law 12.815/2013, which introduced new rules for the ports and their operations. “We are starting a process of regrouping the business entities. We want to introduce changes to perfect the regulatory framework.”

*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça

São Paulo – Provisional Measure 627, from 2013, which alters the taxation regime for foreign subsidiaries of Brazilian enterprises, renders international agreements for preventing double taxation of investment void. So says the tax attorney Luiz Felipe Ferraz, who gave a lecture on the matter alongside his colleague Flávio Mifano at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce this Tuesday (15th), the same day the measure was passed by the Federal Senate. Both work for the law firm Mattos Filho, which specialises in business law.

“The provisional measure has rendered the agreements extinct,” said Ferraz. Although it does not openly revoke the treaties, in practice, the ruling “invalidates what Brazil had agreed upon with other countries.” The reason is that the measure allows the Federal Revenue to levy tax on profit by Brazilian companies with foreign subsidiaries even if the funds do not undergo nationalization.

The measure alters the tax mechanism, which is no longer levied on the profits remitted to the headquarters in Brazil or the earnings distributed to shareholders in the country, but rather is based on “equity equivalence.” As per this model, increased equity of the subsidiary represented by return on capital is deemed taxable. In other words, if the subsidiary is worth US$ 100 and had US$ 40 in profit, the Federal Revenue considers that equity has increased from US$ 100 to US$ 140, and the tax is levied on the difference, prior to any remittance or distribution of earnings.

Anti-double taxation agreements allow companies to pay income tax only in one of the countries it operates in, either that of the headquarters or that of the subsidiary. The situation remains the same, in practice, regarding countries with which Brazil sustains no treaties, but otherwise, the Brazilian Federal Revenue will be able to monitor equity gains in foreign countries and tax them, even if the company has already paid taxes in the country where the subsidiary is based.

 The provisional measure does not change how operations by foreign companies in Brazil or remittances by natural persons are treated, but the attorney believes it gets in the way of a relatively recent process of internationalization of Brazilian companies. “The measure pulls the rug from under Brazilian companies operating abroad, as concerns competitiveness. “The ‘Brazil cost’ [cost of doing business in Brazil] is now being exported,” he said. “It will lead to a deterioration of the scenario for Brazilian investment abroad,” he added.

Ferraz noted that the measure goes against the grain of other countries. European countries, for instance, do not levy tax on earnings obtained by their companies overseas, and the United States only charge whenever the profit is actually distributed, but not when the company reinvests the earnings.

The Arab Brazilian Chamber president, Marcelo Sallum, said he has recently attended events in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates and noted that these countries boast a “rather fabourable scenario” as pertains to preventing double taxation of international businesses. “We are seeing the exact opposite take place here,” he said.

To the Arab Brazilian Chamber CEO, Michel Alaby, Brazil is “moving away from the route of emerging countries” with regard to foreign investment. “It is worrisome, because the government is only thinking in terms of tax collection, and failing to consider business internationalization,” he said. Ferraz believes the “true foundation” of the measure is indeed “collection-oriented.”

Few agreements

Sallum added that Brazil sustains only 25 international agreements for prevention of double taxation. The country does not possess a tradition of seeking out treaties of this kind, but this is a very important issue for Arab countries, on the other hand, especially the Gulf ones, because they are heavy foreign investors, and are not interested in seeing their gains dwindle down as a result of tax payments.

“We can see that those countries are interested [in investing in Brazil], but the opportunities are passing us by. It is somewhat frustrating,” said Sallum.

The provisional measure had already been passed by the House of Representatives, and now is only pending approval from president Dilma Rousseff before it becomes a law.

*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum

São Paulo – Busa, a Brazilian manufacturer of cotton processing and road transport equipment, is considering setting up a sales and services structure in Sudan, an Arab country in North Africa they have already exported to. The information comes from Busa’s Foreign Trade manager, Evandro Oliveira. According to him there is also the perspective of a selling a cotton processing plant project to Sudan, which will have Algerian investment.

Busa works with technology solutions for cotton processing, supplying from crop equipment to processing units and fiber packaging machinery for commercialization. The company sells plant equipment and also the installation services. Busa also manufactures chassis implements, such as semitrailer, tows and platforms, mainly for agricultural use.

 The company has started to export to Sudan after winning an international tender for supplying cotton gin in 2008. According to Oliveira, the company later has also sent logistic and harvest equipment to the Arab country via Brazilian cotton producers. Due to this fact, he has already received delegations from Sudan, Khartoum and Sennar, at the company’s factory, in the city of Guará, in the state of São Paulo.

“We are very interested in developing projects with partners in the Arab world and we look into all the government’s initiative to strengthen these trade links with great interest. Using the paths created by the governments, private companies can boost their partnership and implement negotiations, taking advantage of the credit and investment lines”, Oliveira told ANBA.

Busa has two production units in Guará, one targeted at the cotton area and the other at the road transport area. The company is building another industrial unit in Atibaia, in São Paulo’s countryside, to be closer to the road transport consumer centers. Abroad, the company maintains a representative in the United States and a distributor in France. The latter deals in Burkina Faso, in Africa, and other African countries which do not grow cotton.

 The company was created in 1956 by the Rodrigues family. Currently the administration is held by the second generation, namely Luiz Carlos Rodrigues, son of one of the founders Álvaro Rodrigues and Rosa Vieira Rodrigues. Luiz Carlos took over the company in 1970 and focused the activities on cotton processing, making Busa a leader in this area in the Brazilian market.

Since the 70’s Busa is a player in the international market. The first exports were transport and agriculture equipment to Latin America countries. Since 2006, they started exporting cotton processing plant complement projects. The first, says Oliveira, was installed in Burkina Faso. Since then, the company has sold projects to the United States, Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina and Sudan.

Contact:
Busa
Website: www.busa.com.br (in Portuguese)
Telephone: (+5516) 3831 8500

*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça

São Paulo – Brazilian poultry exports increased in volume, but revenue was down in quarter one this year from the same period in 2013. According to figures released this Monday (14th) by the Brazilian Animal Protein Association (ABPA, in the Portuguese acronym), exports amounted to 950,200 tonnes from January to March this year, up 0.4% from January to March 2013. Revenues were down 11.5% to US$ 1.832 billion.

According to the ABPA vice president for poultry, Ricardo Santin, the revenue dropped due to the appreciation of Brazil’s real and to a hike in the price of maize, the industry’s main input. Still, the executive said, the performance was good for the period.

“The result is good because we have managed to export a higher volume than in early 2013. Revenues were lower, partly due to the exchange rate, but we have broken even. We want to see revenues go back up, but overall, our assessment is a positive one, we are within the target range,” said Santin. He noted there was an oversupply of product in the Middle East last year.

In March, the industry exported 332,300 tonnes, up 0.2% from March last year. Revenues stood at US$ 640.9 million, down 14.3%.

Out of all poultry products, which include chicken, eggs, ducks, turkeys, mallards, genetic material and fertile eggs, chicken meat accounted for 95.5%. Chicken meat exports fetched US$ 1.705 billion in Q1, down 11.5% from Q1 2013. The volume shipped was 907,300 tonnes, up 0.7%.

The Middle East remains the leading Brazilian poultry export target area. From January to March, 332,000 tonnes were shipped to the region, down 4.6% from the same period last year. Exports to Asia, the second leading target, were up 7.5% to 270,500 tonnes. Sales to Africa increased by 1.7% to 125,300 tonnes.

Sales to the European Union were down 0.8% to 101,000 tonnes. Exports of Brazilian chicken meat to the Americas amounted to 58,800 tonnes (up 6.1%), exports to non-European Union countries in Europe amounted to 18,900 tonnes (down 7.4%) and 536 tonnes were shipped to Oceania (up 18.6%) in Q1 this year.

Egg exports saw a decline in revenues and volume. According to the ABPA, in Q1 this year 3,700 tonnes of eggs were exported, down 26.8% from Q1 2013. Revenues stood at US$ 5.2 million, down 41.5%.

According to Santin, egg sales dropped because of higher domestic sales. “Eggs account for 1% of industry output, therefore minute changes in demand and sales have an impact on exports,” he said. The ABPA was founded in March this year to replace the Brazilian Poultry Union (Ubabef) through the merging of the Brazilian Association of Pork Manufacturing and Exporting Industries (Abipecs), which have since become extinct.

*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum

São Paulo – After a three-year period closed for its first full renovation, the Immigration Museum (Museu da Imigração, in Portuguese) will open its doors for the public again on May 31st. Restored and adapted to receive the public, the museum will now hold a permanent exhibition on the 2.5 million immigrants and migrants who have passed through it, besides documents, temporary exhibits and a space for research. 

 The repairs in the Immigration museum cost around US$ 9 million and were intended to adapt the building to host the museum’s public and collections. Built in 1887 to function as an inn, the building will have air conditioning, flood gates and adaptations for people with special needs. The building was repaired and even the institution’s name has changed from Immigrant’s Memorial to Immigration Museum. 

According to the executive director, historian Marília Bonas, the museum which will be reopened to the public will not only touch on early 19th century immigration, but on current immigration as well. “The curatorship has striven to expand the immigrants’ speech. We want to discuss the multiple voices of those who have passed through here to share the immigrants’ experience”, Bonas told ANBA. She also said that the institution will dialog with the immigrant communities and will have a “strong aspect of partnership” with society.

The new permanent exhibition will recall the old facilities of the Immigrants’ Inn. It will have eight modules which promise to have visitors immerse themselves in the Inn’s daily life. In one of the modules, the visitor will be “taken” to the cafeteria and hear the immigrants speak in several languages. From there, they will move on to the dorms, where they will be shown the expectations and dreams of the immigrants before they actually lived in Brazil. They will also watch videos with testimonies from former guests. Other modules will show immigration nowadays.

The Immigration Museum will have an auditorium, a cafe and a space for research on the topic. Visitors who want to use the library and the reference and research center will be accompanied by a museum employee. School groups will have a space to do activities and workshops connected to the theme of immigration.

History

The Immigrants’ Inn was opened to receive immigrants who came to Brazil to work. The first guests were Europeans who left their countries invited by the government of São Paulo after slavery was abolished. They came to replace slaves in the coffee crops. These employees came to Brazil by ship, with the tickets paid by the government of São Paulo. They disembarked in the port in Santos, went up the mountain by train and were hosted at the inn before being sent to work in the countryside.

 As the years passed by, the inn received immigrants of over 70 nationalities, among them Syrians and Lebanese. Brazilian people who came to São Paulo were also hosted there in the 1930s. “In the case of Arabs, they came from many places and focused on urban centers and commerce. Portraying Arab culture is a challenge because it is composed of many cultures and we are interested in bringing that to the public”, says the executive director.

After the closing of the Immigration Museum, its management has also changed. The institution belongs to the State Secretariat for Culture, but is run by the Social Cultural Organization for Friends of the Coffee Museum (Organização Social de Cultura Associação dos Amigos do Museu do Café, in Portuguese), which also runs the namesake museum in Santos, on São Paulo’s shore. The managers expect the Immigration Museum to have 500,000 visitors by the end of the year.

For the opening day, immigrant community theatre presentations and dance shows are scheduled, besides a concert by songwriter and singer Arnaldo Antunes. In June and July, the entrance is free. Besides the permanent exhibition, the Immigration Museum will host temporary exhibits.

Service
Immigration Museum
Rua Visconde de Parnaíba, 1.316, Mooca, São Paulo, SP
Reopening scheduled for May 31st
Visiting hours: from Tuesday to Saturday, from 9am to 5pm. On Sundays, from 10am to 5pm. Fortnightly, on Fridays, the institution will be open until 9pm.
For further information: www.museudaimigracao.org.br (in Portuguese)

*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça