MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Alckmin says Brazil's trade with neighbors should come first

“We have to start with our neighbors,” said Alckmin, who added that thence Lula's first trip as President was to Argentina and Uruguay

Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, in charge of the South American country due to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's trip to China, insisted Wednesday on the importance of increasing trade with Latin America, Xinhua reported.

Alckmin defended the expansion of trade between his country and the rest of Latin America, with which Brazil concludes only 26% of its international transactions.

“In the world, although globalized, trade is tremendously intraregional,” said Alckmin during an event held by the Brazilian Association of Infrastructure and Basic Industries, in Brasilia.

Alckmin said trade among Asian countries reaches 70%, in the European Union 60% and among the United States, Canada, and Mexico it is 50 %.

“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 [and] value-added products,” he explained. Hence President Lula's traveling to Argentina and Uruguay before anywhere else. Then 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.

For the Vice-President, who is also Minister of Development, Industry, Trade, and Services, Brazil went through an early and worrying deindustrialization but it can recover competitiveness through a package of fiscal measures, which still has to be sent to Congress, Alckmin explained.

“The new fiscal framework we are proposing is intelligent because it establishes rigor in public spending, the debt curve will fall, and on the other hand it is countercyclical, that is, when the economy grows very strongly you have a spending ceiling and when it is weaker you have a floor to help boost economic activity,” he said.

Alckmin also highlighted the role of credit in this scenario. He said it should be boosted by the reduction in interest rates as a result of the improvement in expectations with the country's fiscal policy.

(Source: Xinhua)