RIO DE JANEIRO, April 12 (Xinhua) — Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin defended the expansion of trade between his country and the rest of Latin America, recalling that currently only 26 percent of transactions are interregional.
“In the world, although globalized, trade is tremendously intraregional,” said Alckmin, who these days is the acting president of Brazil while Lula da Silva is on a trip to China, during an event of the Brazilian Association of Infrastructure and Basic Industries , in Brasília.
Alckmin gave as examples that trade between Asian countries reaches 70 percent, in the European Union 60 percent and between the United States, Canada and Mexico is 50 percent.
“We have to start with our neighbors, to make a great commercial effort in the region, which is where we sell trucks, cars, buses, auto parts, white goods, value-added products,” he explained.
For this reason, according to him, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began his international participation in this third term by traveling to Argentina and Uruguay. Later he was in the United States, which is the largest investor in Brazil, and now he is in China, the country’s largest trading partner, with the expectation that more than 20 agreements will be signed with the Asian country.
Alckmin also commented that the Brazilian government is optimistic with the approval of the fiscal framework and, later, of the tax reform to leverage investments in the country. For the vice president, who is also Minister of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services, Brazil had an early and worrying deindustrialization but, with the measures announced, it can regain competitiveness.
With the package of fiscal measures, which still has to be sent to Congress, the Government seeks to guarantee credibility and predictability for the economy and for the financing of public services such as health, education and public security.
«The new fiscal framework that we propose is intelligent because it establishes rigor in public spending, the debt curve is going to fall, and on the other hand it is anticyclical, that is, when the economy grows very strongly you have a spending ceiling and when it is more weak you have a floor to help boost economic activity, “he explained.
Likewise, according to Alckmin, the role of credit is very important in this scenario and should be boosted by the reduction in interest rates based on improved expectations with the country’s fiscal policy.
Brazilian vice president defends more trade between Brazil and Latin America – La Nación
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