The president from Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, participated in the closing of the “International Conference on biofuels”, in Sao Paulo (Brasil) Photo: EFE.Â

The alimentary crisis is due to the speculation in financial markets, in raw materials, and of the oil industry; the ethanol and the biodiesel, combine growth with environmental development, but also with social responsibility.Â

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, exempted the biofuels today of any responsibility in the world alimentary crisis, that attributed to the speculation in the financial markets and the raw materials. Â

“The alimentary crisis is caused by the derived speculation of the rise of the petroleum and the rise in the prices of the raw materials”, Lula affirmed when closing the “International Conference on biofuels”, celebrated this week in Sao Paulo.Â

Some governments, international and civil society organizations have attributed the world food shortage to the biofuels, because for their production raw materials as the corn and the sugarcane are use, among others.Â

They have also accused to that industry of putting in risk the biodiversity and of exploiting the work under degrading conditions.Â

“A good part of the increment of the food prices is because there are more poor people eating in the world and it is normal that there is an increase of the consumption, but there are many raw materials speculated in the market of futures at absurd prices”, underlined Lula today.Â

The president criticized in the same way the lack of reservations of basic foods as the wheat, rice and corn that from the year 2000 “lowered to the half.”Â

The boss of State also defended the production and expansion of the alternative fuels, as the ethanol and the biodiesel, because “they combine growth with environmental development, but also with social responsibility.”Â

“I recognize that there are legitimate concerns in this debate”, said Lula who accused “powerful interests” of distorting the truth on the biofuels.Â

The representative for Latin America of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), José Grazziano, that participated in the Conference, supported the brazilian biofuel policy and highlighted the potential that other countries of the region have in that field.Â

However, the participants in the international seminar “Agrifuels as obstacle to the construction of the alimentary and energetics sovereignty”, parallel to the conference, condemned in their final document “the pattern and the promotion strategy” of these fuels.Â

The Earth Pastoral of the Brazilian Catholic Church also reaffirmed in the outline of the seminar its accusations that there is slave and degrading work in the sugarcane industry.

Lula also responded to the critics about the danger that the amazon forest runs due to the expansion of the areas dedicated to the sugarcane cultivation for the ethanol production.Â

“In the Amazonía region we won’t have sugarcane, but we will expand our ethanol to very degraded areas”, said Lula, who pointed out that the biofuels can help to solve the international financial crisis.Â

“The crises are threat carriers but they allow opportunities and new roads”, he indicated.�
However, he pointed out, that “the crisis cannot hide other bottom questions as the hunger and the poverty of hundreds of millions of people, neither hide the problems of the climatic change.”

In the conference that gathered academic, industrial and specialist, the relationship of the biofuels with the climatic change, the alimentary security, the new technologies and the world market was debated, among other aspects.Â

The brazilian chancellor, Celso Amorim, on the other hand, asked for the elimination of the protective barriers in the international trade of biofuel so that the poor countries can benefit of that alternative energy source from the economic and social point of view.Â

Also, Brazil and United States announced an agreement to enlarge the scientific cooperation with third countries in the biofuels production area, that will incorporate Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Guinea Bissau and Senegal to that initiative. Â

Source: El Universal/Mexico

SAO PAULO (AFP)-The world production of the ethanol biofuel will grow A 191% , going from 55.700 million liters manufactured in 2007 to 162.000 millions in 2015, according to a study presented during an International Conference on Biofuels in Sao Paulo.Â

The demand of ethanol in 2010, according to the study, will be of 101.000 million liters, infront of an offer of 88.000 million liters. Â

That “scenario tends to balance in 2015, when the offer should be near to 162.000 million liters, in front of a demand that will be around the 150.000 million liters”, reveals the study of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Economic Commission For Latin America and the Carribean of the UN (ECLAC) and the brazilian BNDES development bank .Â

In 2007, the world produced 55.700 million liters of ethanol, of them 26.000 millions in United States (based on corn), 20.000 millions in Brazil (of sugarcane), 7.400 millions in the Asian countries, and near 2.300 million liters in the European Union (EU).Â

“In those levels, the production of ethanol in 2007 represented around 4% of the 1.300 trillion liters of gasoline consumed annually in the entire world”, it pointed out.Â

“The biofuels and the ethanol were not thought as integral substitutes of the petroleum, but as additives”, told the brazilian José Graziano, representative of the FAO in Latin America and the Caribbeanto to AFP .Â

By 2050 “our projection is that there will be enough space in the earth for the biofuels production, considering the addition of 5% of biodiesel and of 10% of ethanol” in the petroleum derived fuels, on the average in the entire world, Graziano specified that was responsible for orchestrating the Hunger Zero program in Brazil.Â

“With the petroleum we will continue cohabiting while petroleum exists”, declared to AFP, the Mexican Alicia Bárcena, executive secretary of the Cepal.Â

The study of the FAO, the Cepal and the BNDES indicate that the liquid biofuels – especially the ethanol produced from sugarcane, corn and other cereals and in smaller scale the biodiesel (…) – represent today 1,5% of the world matrix of fuel for the transport.Â

The document reminds that from the 2000, the global production of ethanol tripled and that of biodiesel almost quadrupled, that of petroleum, on the other hand, only increased 7% and, “in accordance with some analysts, it will reach its maximum production in some years.”�
It adds on the other hand that “in 2006, the liquid biofuels were responsible for a little more than 1% of the world’s renewable energy and little less than 1% of the annual offer of gross petroleum, evaluated in 4,8 trillion liters (approximately 83 million daily barrels).”�
“This scenario will be able to change in a very quick way in most of the big energy consuming countries due to the application of policies that aim to a bigger use or biofuels for next decade”, it concludes.Â

Source: AFP

The investments will be made through Petrobras Biocombustible, integral subsidiary of the brazilian state company, created on past July 29th.Â

“With the creation of that enterprise, the company gets ready to assist part of the growing world demand of biofuels, besides reinforcing its commitment with the environment and with the social development in a sustainable way”, Petrobras assured.Â

“The biofuels contributes to the reduction of the global heating and facilitate the employment and rent generation, mainly in the country, with the use of the family agriculture in the production of raw materials”, said the state company.Â

And, “the biodiesel production will allow a smaller dependence of the external market, reducing the volume of diesel imports, what contributes to improve the result of the brazilian commercial scale.”Â
Petrobras Biocombustibles inaugurated two biodiesel factories recently in the municipalities of Candeias (state of Bahia, northeast) and of Quixadá (Ceará, northeast), while a third in Montes Claros (Minas Gerias, southeast), is in phase of “operative aconditioning.”Â

The total capacity of biodiesel production of the three factories will be of 170 million liters per year. In Brazil the use of 3% biodiesel in the diesel derived from petroleum is obligatory, for what it needs to produce 840 millions of that biofuel per year.Â

Source: Invertia

SAO PAULO (AFP)-The Brazilian ethanol, derived from the sugarcane, will be the official fuel from 2009 of the Indy Formula, one of the most important motor racing of the world, according to an agreement signed on Monday in the framework of the International Conference on Biofuels.Â

The Understanding Memorandum was signed when being inaugurated the “Primera International Exhibition of the Biocombustibel”, parallel to the conference, between Alessandro Texeira, of the Brazilian Agency of Exports Promotion (Apex) and the president of the Indy Racing League, Terry Angstadt. Â

“The action is part of the strategy developed by Apex to promote the Brazilian biofuel as alternative of clean and sustainable energy”, Texeira explained.Â

The agreement foresees the ethanol and biodiesel supply during the whole season 2009. The consumption of the Indy formula is of 120.000 gallons (454.000 liters) of ethanol, used during trainings, testings and races of the 18 stages that are disputed in United States (15), Canada (2) and Japan (1).Â

The understanding among Apex Brazil and the Indy Racing League “contributes to the consolidation of the ethanol as global commodity”, commented the Union of Sugarcane Industries (Unica).Â

“In moments of serious energy and environmental financial dilemmas, Unica credits that the use of ethanol originating from different agricultural raw materials (corn or cane) in the Indy Formula would symbolize the dream of a bigger energy integration of the American countries, with potential of extending to the whole planet”, concluded the union.Â

“The initiative contributes to the deepening of the natural alliance between Brazil and United States, main producers and consumers of ethanol of the planet, that together respond for more than 75% of the world ethanol”, said the president of Unica, Marcos Jank.Â

Source: AFP

As they informed from the brazilian government the reedbeds sowed to obtain ethanol, would not be dangerous. Agency APÂ

The expansion of the reedbeds in Brazil to satisfy the growing demand of ethanol in the world won’t damage the Amazonas rainforest, said on Monday a high employee of the government. Â

In declarations at the beginning of a five days international conference on biofuels, the government’s general secretary, Dilma Rousseff, said that the country will announce a plan of agricultural areas very soon to specify where the cane can be cultivated, both for sugar or energy generating. Â

The Amazonia and other well-known regions for their wide range of animal species and of plants would be excluded. But Brazil will encourage the expansion of the ethanol production to other parts and in poor countries of the world in wich the climate is favorable for the cultivation.Â

“It is a socioeconomic reality”, Rousseff said. “It generates works and revenues, mostly in tropical countries.”Â

Rousseff also said that the expansion of the ethanol won’t compete with the production of foods in Brazil, and that space exists for other crops, including soya and corn.Â
Although the reedbeds cover 4,2 million hectares of Brazilian lands now, the minister said that that represents less than 1% of the national territory and that abundant available land exists outside of the protected areas.Â

Rousseff said that Brazil should “put an end to the myth that the cane fields are invading the Amazonia”, but the critics say that there are already cane plantations in the region and that some plan to expand. They also denounce that the conversion of grass lands and soya fields to reedbeds are displacing soya farmers and cattlemen that in turn settle down in deforested areas of the forest.Â

Rousseff said that the government of Brazil is prepared to help to the big ethanol producers that suffer because of the global credit crisis.Â

The ethanol producers were among those that could receive help when the government announced thousands of millions of dollars recently in lines of emergency credit for the companies affected by the crisis.Â

Source: La Voz

New landing in the Great Rosario.Â

They already registered the land. Where is it? The works begin in 30 days and they will be finished by ends of 2009. Â

The Brazilian group Integrated Biodiesel Industries (IBI) summed up the purchase of a land in Alvear to lift a biofuel plant of 150 thousand tons a day. Â

As punto biz could know, the concretion of the project will mean a payment of u$s2.5M. The works will start up in 30 days and they will ready in the 10 months (september/october).Â

The equipments of the plant will be imported from Brazil, but they will also be supplemented with technology from Argentina. And as they will make biodiesel based on soya oil, the location in Alvear is strategic because it is near the plants at the south of the Great Rosario. . .

Although it is thought for the exporting business, IBI -that added two local partners for this project- doesn’t discard to get ready for when the Argentinean market sprouts.
In rigor, the company had signed a letter of intention with Port Rosario that expired and as the Rosarine Terminal finalized an agreement with Raiser they decided to head to the Great Rosario.Â

One of the alternatives, that is still under negotiation, is an agreement with ICI Argentina (the former Duperial controlled at the moment by Akzo Nobel) to move to San Lorenzo the biodiesel plant that they had planned to lift in Port Rosario.Â

The idea is to rent a fringe of the property of ICI of 5.000 m2 and to take advantage of, the storage tanks, the quay and the industrial infrastructure, but the agreement is not yet finalized. In that mark, the alternative of the Park of Alvear appeared.Â

Courtesy of Punto Biz for Nextfuel Argentina/biodiesel.com.ar

SAO PAULO (AFP)-Brazil will be headquarters of an International Conference on biofuels next week, in which it will promote its sugarcane bioethanol, its main contribution in the segment of the renewable fuels.Â

Representatives of up to 40 countries will attend the encounter, that will last a week in Sao Paulo, and is foreseen to have ministerial level. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will inaugurate it on Monday.Â

Brazil is the biggest world exporter of ethanol and the second producer, behind United States.

When the prices of the petroleum were skyhigh, some months ago, the country awaited a boom of its ethanol exports. Some of the markets that it has as ambition are that of the European Union, with big commitments of enlarging the biofuels matrix, and Japan that has to define the adoption of the mixture of ethanol to the gasoline.Â

But with the crisis, those exports face an arduous competitor: the petroleum reached prices below the sixty dollars and the political impulse to adopt clean energy seems to fall.Â
“With the current crude price level, the ethanol is losing competitiveness in the exporting market”, said this week Alexandre Pirillo Franceschi, boss of the Usina Alvorada company, to the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.Â

The debate on the impact that the biofuels production can have in that of the food or in the advance of the amazon deforestation also seemed to lose force .Â

Brazil has denied such an influence assuring that the production of the sugarcane ethanol is not compatible in the Amazonía and that neither did it have an impact on the production of food that also increased significantly in the last years.Â

“The ethanol was even accused of being responsible for problems as the hunger in the world and the climatic change”, but the conference will show that “the biofuels is the cleanest alternative energy source of the world”, affirmed André Amado, boss of the department of Energy of the Chancellery.Â

A group of social, environmental and small producers organizations will organize a parallel encounter on biofuels to rebut the Brazilian government’s arguments.Â

These will highlight the hard working conditions in the cane fields, where most accusations of slave working took place in the last years, besides environmental damages of the great industry of the ethanol.  Â

Source: AFP

Barra Bonita, Brazil (Reuters) – The ethanol biofuel industry of Brazil would invest near 33.000 million dollars up to 2015, said on Tuesday the Association of the Cane Industry (Unica) of that country, while the fuel demand grows as an alternative to the gasoline.Â

The production of ethanol derived from the sugarcane has grown in constant way in the last years and it is forseen that it will increase almost a 20 percent only in the lapse 2008/09, because the flexible fuel cars that work only with ethanol, now dominate the sales of new cars in this quick growing nation. Â

But as it is forseen that the production more than it will duplicated in the 2020 and with the possibility of new export opportunities, the industry is planning a series of investments in new plants and machineries.Â

“That is what will be used to build the new plants and to upgrade the old plants,” Adhemar Altieri said, a spokesman of Unica, referring to the figure of 33.000 million dollars that he mentioned during a visit to the worlds biggest sugar and ethanol plant belonging to the Brazilian firm Cosan.Â

“Part of it will be used for logistics and infrastructure as ports and different methods of transport and facilities. All that is necessary if one wants to be able to guarantee the exports,” he added.Â

The capital would be invested by the owners of the cane geniuses and plantations of the Latin American nation, said Altieri, that it embraces a combination of local and foreign companies and includes multinationals, as the producer of American foods Cargill and the British company of energy BP.Â

(Report from Peter Murphy; Published in spanish by Marcel Deza)Â

Source: Reuters

The Brazilian ethanol contaminates less. Picture: AFP

The OECD says that it reduces the emissions of polluting gases in at least 80%

PARIS (AFP). – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) highlighted, last Wednesday, the positive impact of the Brazilian ethanol, based on sugar cane, on the environment, since it reduces the emissions of polluting gases in at least 80%. Â

The OECD assured that in United States and Europe the effectiveness of the biocarburants is much smaller.Â

The OECD that has 30 industrialized countries as members, pointed out in a report: “The reduction of emissions is much smaller when the biocarburants based on raw materials used in Europe and America of the North are used”. United States, that distills it starting from the corn, is the first ethanol producer (carburant alcohol), with 48% of the world total in 2007.Â

Brazil follows its step, with 31% of the ethanol world production, manufactured starting from the sugar cane. The European Union (EU) represents 60% of the biodiesel world production, extracted from vegetable oils.Â

The government policies of support to the biocarburants in the countries of the OECD – mainly the high subsidies – are expensive and inefficient when protecting the environment, concluded the report. “They are expensive, they have a limited impact on the reduction of hothouse effect gases and on the improvement of the energy security, and a significant impact on the food world prices”, it estimated.Â

The biocarburants produced with wheat, sugar beet, vegetable oils or corn, “rarely reduce the emissions more than 30% to 60%, while the reduction (of emissions) of the corn ethanol is generally inferior to 30%”, the OECD indicated.Â

For the organization, the continuation of the current support policies to the biocarburants would reduce the emissions of hothouse effect gases derived from the transport in no more than 0,8% for 2015.Â

The subsidies to the biofuels in United States, Canada and the EU rose to 11.000 million annual dollars in 2006, and this figure would ascend to 25.000 millions per year for 2015, the OECD sustains. and explains that those subsidies are reinforced by high taxes to the import.Â

The report advises the governments of the OECD to center its policies in the energy reduction, mainly in the transport sector, and to open the markets to the biofuels and its raw materials “to improve its efficiency and lower the costs”.Â

The impact of the current policies on the biocarburants in the food prices “is significant but it should not be overestimated”, the OECD indicated.Â

The report calculates that the current support measures to the biofuels will increase the prices of the wheat in a 5 percent, of the corn in a 7 percent and of the vegetable oil in a 19 percent in next 10 years.Â

Source: La Nación

One of the last speeches of Lula was centered in presenting his policies for the productive development of his country. What and how it will be promoted, for when and what resources it will have. Brazil is obsessed with the goals, but mainly, with the getting businessmen and investors to know them.  Â

Last May 12th, while our country was wearing out in the conflict Government-field, the president from Brazil announced in the headquarters of the Bndes – the bank of development of that country – the Program of Productive Development (PDP) that implies an uppercase effort of private public articulation dedicated to achieve between 2010 and 2011 a series of strategic objectives, of invigoration of the competitiveness, of bigger internationalization of its companies and of consolidation of the world leadership in certain productive sectors.Â

Although it is impossible in a single article to describe all that the PDP contains – its presentation embraces 235 slides -Â its content can be summarized in the following aspects:Â

The achieved assets: They are the bases that endorse this planning, among those are external balanced bills and bigger reservation levels ; reduced inflation and low control; capital and credit markets in expansion; reduction of the unemployment and better distribution of the rent; private sector with surplus resources, low indebtedness and appropriate rent levels and, lastly, aspect not smaller, investment grade granted by risk examinators.Â

Quantitative goals: to elevate the fixed investment to 21% of the PBI in 2010 -620.000 millions of reals, some US $386.000 millions -; the increase the private contribution in I&D to 0,65% of the PBI; to achieve 1,25% of the world exports for that same year (US $208.000 millions) and to elevate the number of pymes exporters of goods in a 10%.

Development strategy: regionalization – to strengthen the development of the backward regions -; to consolidate the goods producing pymes and services impelling their internationalization; to support the sustainable production through clean technologies propitiating the environmental care; to increase the exports above the world average; to point to the biggest productive integration in Latin America with special emphasis in the Mercosur and to achieve a bigger insert in Africa.Â

Programs in strategic sectors: industries of the health; the nuclear energy; for the defense; information and communication technologie; biotechnology and nanotechnology.Â
Programs to obtain and/or consolidate the world leadership in the aeronautical sectors; of bioethanol; steel; of cellulose and paper; of petroleum, gas and petrochemistry; miner, and meat.Â

Programs to strengthen the competitiveness in 12 industries: automotive; leather and footwears; textile and their makings; capital goods; naval industry; civil construction; plastics; agroindustry; complex of services; wood and furniture; perfumery and cosmetics, and biodiesel.

The protagonistic role from the neighboring State are in two ministries – that of Development, Industry and Trade (MDIC) and that of Science and Technology (MCT) -, the National Bank of Economic and Social Development (Bndes), Petrobrás (in all upon energy) and the agencies ABDI, APEX and Sebrae, regarding the industrial development, commercial promotion and pymes support, respectively.Â

The whole program has astrong bet on the technological innovation – one of the weak points of the Brazilian development – even by means of the foreign investment attraction for the installation of I&D centers in its territory, the creation of a series of funds of capital of risk for innovative projects, quick depreciation of 100% – that is imputed as total expense in the first year – for laboratories, investigation centers and the equipment required to install them, and non reimbursable funds and of zero rate credit support for innovations in the items of health, renewable energy and of carbon dioxide emission reduction.Â

A financial octopusÂ

The Bndes, in particular, is a key piece in that context. With funds foreseen by 210.000 millions of reals (US $131.000 millions) in three years – it is necessary to clarify that this bank exceeds the IDB in loanable capacity -, it participates in the entirety of the industry support programs, either in financing the work capital, acquisition of national equipment (it doesn’t finance imports), credits for the goods production and exportable services and for the credit granting of medium and short term to the buyers of the exterior in the modality buyer s credit.Â

Regarding technological innovation, the Bndes together with other state organisms forsees the use of funds for 41.200 millions of reals (US $25.600), plus the contributions established of the private sector in a series of funds of risk modalities (capital venture) dedicated to activate and to promote companies with certain technological capacities.Â

The reading of the diverse programs points out the clear vocation of the Brazilian State – and of the private sector with which they have agreed the diverse goals and objectives – of consolidating a leadership position inside the emergent powers and achieving a better relationship with the Latin American countries.Â

In that sense, it is symptomatic, when it points out the necessity to support the export of those countries – among wich ours is – to the Brazil, in what denominates” Program of competitive substitution of the imports”, including the necessity to finance and to capitalize the firms of this region, intending for it the opening of branches of the Bndes and of the Bank do Brazil in Montevideo.Â

It goes beyond these topics, propitiating the creation of productive chains programs where suppliers of the region participate, especially of the Mercosur, in areas such as those of petroleum and gas, the automotive, those linked with the tourism and the wood and furniture.Â

The brazilian pragmatic vision arises with clarity, in the special relationship that maintains with Venezuela, that highlights through the programs dedicated to accelerate the industrialization process of that country, sustained in turn in big infrastructure works faced by Brazilian companies in that territory and in the formidable growth of its exports to that destination, that this year exceeded the 6000 million dollars largely – everything while the acceptance of Venezuela as full member of the Mercosur “sleeps” in the Brazilian Congress.-Â

The PDP, has its negative part, when it promotes the regulation of the Areas of Exports Prosecution in the less developed brazilian states, inside the denominated regionalization program.Â

Against the MercosurÂ

This is serious because the installation of these areas with tributary and customs benefits for twenty years, with extension possibility goes in the inverse sense of that established in the Treaty of Asunción and its complementary protocols, as for the definition of an unique territory of the common market, the elimination of the existent asymmetries created by the countries and to the progressive dismantlement of the well-known spaces as customs-free area, of prosecution of the exports and special customs territories.

The Brazilian PDP responds, beyond the difficulties and obstacles that arise in its instrumentation, to what the North American economist Dani Rodrik has always advised that is the development of a “home grown business plan” with attention to the typical strengths and weaknesses of each country, for its best international competitive insertion.Â

Effects in the ArgentinaÂ

For the Argentina that doesn’t possess a strategic plan, the PDP represents opportunities and threats at the same time.Â

Opportunities because of its own reading emerges innumerable productive possibilities of commercial and technological complementation. Let us only take three cases of the 25 enumerated in the PDP: the bioehtanol that is one of the marked sectors of world leadership position, where there is already an entire Brazilian technology developed based on the sugarcane that can be replicated in our country; but the most important thing is given in the second innovation phase, that refers to the production of plastics on the basis of ethanol (the “green plastics”) and to the obtaintion of ethanol of lignocelullosic source (with cane trash) with which there would be a complete use of the raw material as renewable energy. The complementation possibilities to displace the fossil fuels for renewable and to develop, at the same time, the “flex” motor of the automotive complex are clear.Â

Another case is of the health industry for which the PDP outlines a smaller external dependence – its commercial scale of medicine and medical equipment is deficit in US $5500 millions – impelling the own investigation, the installation of centers and laboratories of transnational companies in its territory with a strong certification process and approval of norms on the part of laboratories and other companies of the area. Our sector of health industries is of smaller size, but it has excellence niches in medicine, biotechnology and medical equipment and it is also highly deficit from the sectoral commercial balance point of view . A combined work in this field could throw highly beneficial results.Â

The last case is that of the agroindustrial complex where both countries have an outstanding presence: Brazil is the second producing/exporting power , after the United States and the Argentina is fourth at world level. However, both countries have a strong dependence regarding OGM seeds, agrochemicals and fertilizers that are elaborated by a few big transnational companies.Â

There are interesting developments of genetics in the two countries to go modifying this reality, but the certain thing is that the necessary resources for the I&D are very high and this requires clearly a combined work, mainly keeping in mind that the position as competitive producing/exporting countries is not only consolidated, but will still grow more in the future.Â

Conclusions: the Brazilian PDP represents for our country unbeatable opportunities to take advantage of the synergy that emerges from it: complementation and productive articulation, external commercial and in innovation; but also severe threats in the case of ignoring it, that will grow even more if, as up to now, the circumstantial is only looked at and, as so many other times, the opportunities are missed.Â

By Raúl Ochoa
For LA NACION

The author is professor of the Master in International Commercial Relationships of the Untref and teacher of the Standard Foundation BankÂ

Before 2010Â

Infrastructure

Among the goals to reach before 2010 figure 45.000 kilometers of routes; 2500 kilometers of railways; 20 airports; 12 ports and 67 fluvial ports; generation of 12 MW; and 14.000 transmission lines.Â

The total investment projected in between 2007 and 2010 is approximately of 25.590 million dollars.Â

To duplicate the number of applications of intellectual right property on the part of brazilian companies.Â

Training of the human resources

The National Education Plan establishes the creation of 214 new professional and technological schools and 260.000 new registrations.Â

Petroleum, natural gas and petrochemistry. To increase the productive capacity of Bndes (the bank of development of Brazil), Petrobras and of the National Institute of the Industrial Property (INPI), among other organisms.Â

Increasement of the productive capacity of Petrobras. The plan of business 2008-2012 specifies a payment of more than 112.000 million dollars that will be distributed in internal investments, gas, energy and purchase distribution.Â

Industrial and professional training . The national professional formation plan contemplates a budget of 189 million dollars.Â

Project of competitive imports substitution

State cooperation with the companies for the combined development of imported materials and equipment.Â

Project for the competitive and sustainable insertion of micros and small companies in the productive chain of the petroleum and the gas. For it an agreement between Petrobras and Sebrae (the support secretary to the micro and small companies) was designed.Â
Invigoration of the regional nuclei through associations of Petrobras with universities and investigation institutes with focus in the regional demands and in the technologie. Almost 187 million annual dollars were assigned to the project.Â

The program to strengthen the naval industry and coastal traffic competitiveness specifies, among other goals, the increase of the use of national crafts from the 65 to 85 percent, and the amplification of the participation of Brazilian flag in the world merchant marine to 1 percent.Â

Source:La Nación