The effects of imposing barriers on Brazilian products are as damaging as the effects of piracy. This was the message transmitted by the Minister of Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade, Luiz Fernando Furlan, to the government of the United States.
The message was sent by way of Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The two participated in the Brazil Against Piracy seminar in São Paulo, Brazil.
“Senator, I would like you to deliver this message to your colleagues, that unfair competition practiced through a large variety of subsidies to agriculture and some industrial sectors, including aviation, produces the same outcome of unfair competition as that caused by piracy, fraud, and falsification,” Furlan declared.
The Minister claims that Brazil is the victim of “disguised unfair competition” as the result of the subsidy policies and barriers imposed by other countries on Brazilian products.
The US Senator said that subsidies and piracy shouldn’t be compared. In his view, Furlan simply reflected the truth about piracy. He emphasized that matters involving commercial competition should be dealt with in the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Coleman said that announcement of the decision on whether to remove some Brazilian products from the General System of Preferences (GSP) might be postponed from March 31, the date when it was scheduled to be announced.
The Brazilian products on the GSP list enter the United States duty-free. The United States is threatening to retaliate against Brazil, if Brazil fails to enforce the Intellectual Protection Law, in other words, does not combat piracy.
Translation: David Silberstein
Agência Brasil
Show Comments (1)
Guest
complain…..again…..
I love Brazil, I love brazilians. I even like the actual governmnent but only to a certain point…..!!!!!!
This government always complain about subsidies or trade barriers other governments give to their industries !
However they tend to forget that Brazil is quite closed either by laws, various import taxes, restricitions of goods, regulations, of goods or services that could enter your country.
Everyone knows that your country is quite more closed than the countries your government is criticizing !!!!!!
They only want to export more and more but do everything to import less and less !!!
Cases I have in mind is piracy, drugs for aid and other diseases,computers, software, etc etc !!!!
They forget that tens of billions of dollars were and are needed for these products and that are high margins are needed to continue for further developments.
Dont you believe that one who always want something but never gives back something in return is fair ?????
Lets go back to the negotiations table because as you know the growth of the developped countries are low and that their unemployment is rising, partly because of putting part of their industries in the emerging countries !
But at the end, if developped countries become poor….to whom will you sell ??????