Brazil to grow 2.0 percent next year industry group
Date
12/10/2013 3:02:06 PM
(MENAFN- AFP) The Brazilian Economy will grow 2.2 percent this year and 2.0 percent in 2014, an influential industrial group said Tuesday, calling for less red tape and more competitiveness.
"This year was better than last year, but an expansion of around two percent is very little for Brazil," said Paulo Skaf, president of the powerful Federation of Industries of the State of Sao Paulo (FIESP).
"The country needs to grow more," he told a press conference.
FIESP meanwhile said the industrial sector in the world's seventh largest economy was set to grow 1.5 percent this year and 2.5 percent in 2014, up from a 0.8 percent contraction in 2012.
It again highlighted key shortcomings hobbling economic expansion, such as the high cost of energy, a costly and burdensome tax system and poor infrastructure and logistics.
"We have voiced serious concern about the issue of competitiveness," said Skaf.
According to FIESP estimates, an imported product is 34.2 percent cheaper in the domestic market than a similar one made in Brazil.
"This has to do with the cost of bureaucracy, of high interest rates, the tax burden and more expensive services," said Renato Corona, the FIESP official in charge of competitiveness.
"We must make life easier for those who live and produce in Brazil," Skaf said.
In 2012 Brazil's GDP grew an anemic one percent, compared with 2.7 percent in 2011 and a robust 7.5 percent in 2010, according to official figures.
The Central Bank and the finance ministry are forecasting 2.5 percent GDP growth this year.
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