Logistics – biggest barrier to export

Aug 14, 2016 by admin    No Comments    Posted under: Economy

Logistic difficulties – such as additional transportation costs caused by poor road conditions, tariffs at ports and airports, and delay in release of goods by customs – these are the main obstacles to the competitiveness of Brazilian export products. Above-mentioned conclusions are parts of a study conducted by the National Industry Confederation (CNI). Bureaucracy and customs costs are other major challenges to sales of products abroad.

The survey was conducted by Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in the period between December 2015 and January 2016. During the survey – 846 large, medium and small businesses were approached. Exporters indicated 62 barriers to trade and attributed them a scale from one to five.

The costs of transport, for example, received a score of 3.61; the tariffs of ports and airports – 3.44; and low action of government to overcome export barriers got 3.23. Among the top five problems identified by the exporters – there were mentioned also lack of competitive prices – 3.11, and the tariffs charged by consenting agencies – 3.04.

Although bureaucracy has decreased in recent years, according to the survey, respondents mentioned the following obstacles: conflicting laws, excessive laws and the constantly changing rules, excessive documentation, delay in the release of goods by customs, and the difficulty in understanding the legislation.

The Executive Manager of the Foreign Trade Department of CNI, Diego Bonomo pointed out that one of the short-term solutions to solving bureaucratic issues would be a unification of a collection of fees charged by the federal and state governments.

The first step is to say which the fees are. There is a problem of collection. Now there is an administrative chaos. One of the proposals is to create a single collection system that would have a unique site for records. If the government collected the fees at once, it would be sufficient.

The Foundation defends, for example, a return of “Reintegra” – program that compensated the residual tax costs of exporters in the production chain – with a 3% rate.

The research conducted by CNI four years ago pointed out the exchange rate between the BRL and USD – as the rate was adjusted – the structural problems appeared.

Source: http://epocanegocios.globo.com/