The Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, said today (8), in the capital of São Paulo, that the reconfiguration of global production chains, resulting from the covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, could become an opportunity for Brazil.
“Brazil has a historic opportunity to emerge as a country of great resources that is: a digital power, the fourth largest in the world, with greater digital penetration; an energy power, renewable energy, nobody has a cleaner and more diversified matrix than the Brazilian one; a green, environmental power; and at the same time a food power”, he said at an automotive sector event.
The minister cited assessments made by the US Treasury and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which indicate two requirements for future investments. One of them is that one should not invest too far, in view of possible logistical problems due to having supplies far from production.
“It’s no use having semiconductors being produced there in Taiwan, where 80% of all semiconductors in the world are produced, because, if you have any disorganization, as was the covid crisis, you paralyze 5G, telecommunications, the automobile industry,” he said. .
The other requirement is maintaining good relations with the supplier country. “It has to be a friend. Russia, for example, is very close to Europe. There is even a part of the country that is in continental Europe, but they are hostile,” he recalled.
Guedes highlighted measures that helped preserve employment during the covid-19 pandemic, such as the Emergency Employment and Income Maintenance Program. The minister estimates that the unemployment rate should reach 8% by the end of the year. Data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in relation to the quarter ended in June, show a rate of 9.3%.
