Official contact and cooperation fair in Recife and individual company visits in Rio de Janeiro (24.02.-02.03.2013)

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Organized by BW-International  (Read more and/or apply)

The North-Eastern part of Brazil is by far the fastest growing business area in the country. Cities like Recife, Joao Pessoa and Fortaleza are facing an so called industrial spring in industries of energy, construction & building, textile and tourism.

Besides touristic flavour and the vision of the two megaevents „Copa del Mundo 2014“ and „Olympic Games 2016“, Rio de Janeiro is the industrial base to some of the largest companies in Brazil, like Vale and Petrobras – a very good idea to participate this excellent event and gain actual market information.

Applications can be done til 14.12.2012 – so hurry up!
(Read more and/or apply)

Design of new port area of Rio de Janeiro

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As already announced on the German-Brazilian-Economic Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, 2011, the local authorities has decided to redesign the prot area and to demolish the port highway „Perimetrial“ – it will disappear in near future, the reconstruction is already going.

The following video of O Globo (Redesign Perimetral) gives a vision of the new port area and the surprising possibilities for urban life. Worthwile looking !

In particular, a very inconspicuous detail in this video is very cool – a new city train, metro, up-way (call it as you like). In former times the old (no, very old!) „bondinha“ in Santa Teresa was used from citizens and tourists as well . Since some years it became closed due to an accident, this new idea seems to be a real innovation in the public transport concept.

A more detailed view on the present situation and on some details concerning the activities can be viewed here (Construction details).

Sustainable and energy efficient building – Official Business trip to Brazil for companies of Baden-Württemberg (15.-24.04.2012)

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Source: Alexander Koeninger, 2011

Sustainable and energy efficient building is an often discussed topic and of general interest in the Brazilian construction industry and the public sphere. In particular for gaining a certificate according to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) or Aqua (Alta Qualidade Ambiental) the number of applications between 2009 and 2010 increased to 75%. Nowadays, Brazil is ranking on place 4 (!) worldwide with 371 buildings in the certification process.

Baden-Württemberg International, Handwerk International Baden-Württemberg and the Ministry of Economics and Finance of Baden-Württemberg are organizing an official business trip with representatives of German companies of Baden-Württemberg. The visit from 15.-24.04.2012 will include Curitiba, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

This trip is an excellent opportunity and platform for companies in the area of building and construction to present their products and services to an interested Brazilian attendance. Application can be done til 29.02.2012. Read more about about the trip and details for applying.

Bustrips for hard liners – the longest public transit bus trip in Europe

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Yesterday TV had a quite surprisingly report about the longest bus trip in Europe. From Germany about Austria the busses hit finally the Turkish border – almost 2.650 km. The report in Abenteuer Leben/KabelEins  titled „bustrip for hard-boiled travellers“ , selling the trip as something completely extraordinary.

1986 as a student and on my fourth trip to Brazil I took the bus from Rio de Janeiro to Recife. Almost 40 hours on the road I spent about 3 days along 2350 km. Nowadays, this long distance busses are still working and used to be a very common and first and foremost working (!) public transport throughout Brazil. Did you ever try to get ahead and pass one of them? Using a speed of about more than 100 km/hour under „Brazilian conditions“, this giants of the road are almost invincible.

 (Source: Packtours )

Taking the example in Abenteuer Leben – of course in Brazil noone would think about something extraordinary. Look at the following schedule – an even three times longer trip. Starting at Porto Alegre in the South towards Sao Paulo (1150 km), Sao Paulo – Rio de Janeiro (430 km), Rio de Janeiro – Recife (2400 km), Recife – Fortaleza (844 km), Fortaleza – Sao Luis (1070 km), and finally towards Belem in the North (810 km), the whole trip takes 6704 km and about 5 days. And I am afraid there are even longer ones.

Competition between Brazilian states empowers economy

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Remarkable effect of local tax reduction on both economical development and tax increase is recently demostrated by the local government of Santa Catarina state in Brasil. It is well known, that Brazil suffers from a tremendous number and height of different taxes, putting pressure on international exporters in particular.

Besides a long number of national import taxes, the ICMS is under the control of each federal state.

To empower local activities of foreign companies, the ICMS taxes were reduced from 17% to 3% in Santa Catarina. In fact, a few Brazilian regional governements decrease the ICMS taxation level. The intention of the local authority is clear – reduced taxes will empower foreign activitites to increase their business within this region.

As a result of this adjustement, in 2010 the quantity of imports in Santa Catarina increased up to 140% (in Brasil only 50%). Four years ago, the state was on rank 9 in number of imports, nowadays it is on rank 5. Surprisingly the total tax income on ICMS increased about 50%.

As a further consequence a partly deindustrialization could be a severe effect. In the first seven months of 2011, import volume enlarged to about 28%. In the same time span the industrial production declined 2,4%.

A brief example: After all taxes, the market price of an electric shaver in Brazil  is 177 R$, including 32 R$ ICMS tax. In Santa Catarina, the part of ICMS is only 20 R$ – a difference of 12 R$. This about 8% increase in product margin could help to develop new products and services or even help organisational restructuring – or could be used to adjust prices to gain advantages against competitors.

Brasil economic power overtakes Great Britain

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As one ot he most powerful in the emerging markets, Brasils economic growth gain a new dimension. According to the „Center for Economics and Business Research“, recent developments shoot Brasil to rank five in the list of the worlds most powerful economics and replaces Great Britain in actual times. If the actual growth speed keeps the pace, the next target – France – could be achieved in 2015 as the IWF stated recently. As the Brazilian Ministery of Finance. Sr. Montega  believes, this could happen even earlier. Evidently this does not represent the same level of individual income and therefore consequently lower purchasing power and life standard. Brazil is going to need more 15 to 20 yrs to gain the same standards as in Europe, cf to Sr. Mantega.

In 2011, the Brazilian economy will reduce growth from 7.5% (in 2010)  to expected 3.0%. New prognostics state an increased growth In 2012 up to 4 to 5%.   >>> Read More

Argentinian figures for 2010

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Brasil and Argentina represent more than 85% of the Mercosur free trade zone area.

The INDEC (Instituto Nacional de Estatística e Censo) announced recently, that the Argentinian GDP increased 9,2% in 2010. This is a major improvement after the financial crisis in 2009 (0,9%). The production of goods increased 10,6% in particular through activities in the agricultural sectors. The service sector even showed an spectacular growth of 76% in 2010.

This positive development is due to an interesting growth of industrial production (automotive & suppliers) to 9.7%. Since 2003 Argentina showed an remarkable yearly growth of about 9%, interrupted in 2008 (7,1%) and 2009.

To the contrary, Brazilian authorities try to control market overheating, as already noted in the last blog post. Economists from the ITAU revised now their GDP analysis from 4.0% to 3,6% for 2011 and a forecast to 3,8% for 2012, which  underlines the success of this activities.

It is expected that the base lending rate (taxa selic) will be reduced from 75 to 50 base points. The economists expect further an global economic increase from 4,2% to 4,4% in 2011.

Brazil could overtake Italy economically

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According to an announcement of the IBGE, the Brazilian statistical authority, on march 4th, the GDP increased 7,5% in 2010. This is the biggest economic growth in one year since 1985. Brasil could outperform Italy and take the seventh place in the ranking of the world biggest economies. The actual Italian figures are expected at the beginning of April.

This figures also lead to some preoccupation about inflationary tendencies and are seen as effects of economical overheating. With a massive control of the monetary policies, the Brazilian Central Bank achieved already results to reduce this thread, gaining smaller growth rates in the Q4/2010, and a continuing decrease in 2011. Actual figures expect an economic growth target of about 4% for Q1/2011. It is expected, that this will reduce inflation danger – measured recently up to 6,7% – substantially.

China announces import tax reduction

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Import tax load is an important parameter for foreign companies to decide wether to enter a foreign market or not. Often used to protect the national economic sectors, is also has to be seen as an critical parameter in the competition between the BRIC states for new technologies and investors.

Recently China announced (article), that it intends to reduce the import tax level for several high tech products to open the markets for worldwide investors. Named reasons were

  • a reduction of the critical export dependence
  • a massiv support for the domestic demand (chinese households deliver only 35% of the GDP in 2009)

To the contrary, some weeks ago, the Brazilian secretary of trade announced, that it is intended to increase import taxes in Brazil for luxury goods to 35%.

How will the chinese regulatory changes affect the behaviour of the other BRIC states, namely Brazil?

Welcome

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Welcome to Koeninger & Partner Sales Management.

In this section we will provide news about our sales management activities. You will find dates about seminars, teaching opportunities, workshops and other interesting stuff along sales and business development topics.

After some discussions we decided not to install a regularly News section in our websites, rather than giving others (clients, guests, partners, competitors?) the opportunity to participate in our discussions due to a Blog tool.

A lot of todays markets are presently at least stagnating or even shrinking. Therefore, we believe, that sharing information and doing business together – and not against each other – is an appropriate answer and a very important insight of todays business.

We hope, that you will benefit from our contributions. Please feel free to participate.