Leuthard aims for improved trade with Brazil
Swiss Economics Minister Doris Leuthard has flown to Brazil on a visit aimed at improving access to the Brazilian market for Swiss products and investment.
Leuthard, who is accompanied on her four-day trip by a delegation of Swiss business leaders, is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding on the creation of a joint economic commission.
The economics ministry describes this as a first “solid step” towards the implementation of the Swiss government’s strategy for Brazil adopted in December.
Part of the strategy is to improve the institutional framework of bilateral economic relations. Brazil is one of the few countries with which Switzerland has neither an investment protection agreement nor a double taxation accord.
Brazil is Switzerland’s most important trade partner in Latin America ahead of Mexico and Argentina.
Leuthard will also broach the issue of the stalled Doha talks on world trade liberalisation, which she tried to push forward at last month’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Agricultural products
On behalf of the G20 group of industrial and developing countries, Brazil is expected to lobby strongly for greater liberalisation of the markets for agricultural products.
Brazil is one of four emerging countries – the others are Russia, India and China – which are in a group called BRIC.
In a 2003 paper, the Goldmann Sachs investment bank argued that the BRIC economies were rapidly developing and would account for half of the world’s industrial production over the next 40 years.
The Swiss government has decided to make this group a priority this year.
During the first two days of the visit, Leuthard will hold a number of meetings with Brazilian employers in the state of Sao Paulo, the governor of the province and the Swiss business community there.
On Thursday, she is due to meet President Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva as well as several government ministers.
The delegation is also scheduled to attend the opening of a production plant of Swiss food multinational Nestlé in the northeast of the country at which the president is also expected.
swissinfo with agencies
In the first 11 months of 2006, Switzerland exported goods valued at around SFr1.3 billion ($1.04 billion) to Brazil and imported goods worth SFr719 million.
Compared with 2005, this represents a 25% increase in the volume of bilateral trade.
The level of Swiss investment in Brazil in 2005 was SFr6.5 billion.
Swiss companies provide employment for 91,000 people in Brazil.
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