The Commission of Economic Development, Industry and Commerce approved on Wednesday (30) the Complementary Bill (PLP) 508/09 posing the extension of Brazilian Development Bank’s (BNDES) actions to finance the exports of Brazilian goods and services. The bill was initiated by a special committee of the Chamber that analyzed the 2008 international crisis and its impacts on the foreign trade.

The reporter, Deputy Jurandil Juarez advocated the approval of the bill. He submitted an alternative bill to amend the text in order to clarify that the proposal concerns the support for exports and services. “Foreign trade is a strategic activity for Brazilian economy, which deserves the support that industrialized countries already provide to their own economies”, he said.

The bill is purposed to provide insurance to the export of Brazilian goods and services against commercial, political and extraordinary risks that may affect economic and financial transactions related to operations on credit to export. Thus, the bill amends the current legislation and allows BNDES to create a subsidiary that will be able to perform in this segment with its own resources.

The idea is to establish an agency similar to the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank) of the USA, which is the official agency of credit to exports and was founded more than 70 years ago. According to the Special Commission, the bill will also initiate a debate on the creation of such agency, seeking solutions to provide greater efficiency possible to boost foreign trade, in addition to analyze costs and benefits of alternatives available.

How it works

The Ex-Im Bank is an official agency of credit to exports in the USA, which supports the purchase of American goods and services by international buyers able to obtain credit under unavailability conditions jointly with traditional commerce and structured financing sources. The bank takes credit and country risks that the private sector is not able to deal with or is not interested in accepting support to level American exports with those from other countries funded by their governments.

According to Ex-Im Bank, in more than 70 years the agency has already supported more than U$400 billion in American exports overseas. Ex-Im Bank deals with Brazil for more than 60 years. In 2004, Ex-Im Bank approved 213 million dollars to support American exports to Brazil.

The bill will be analyzed by other commissions before being voted by the Plenary.

Translation-SP Language/Grupo Solucion –Thiago de Lira Capatti