Beatriz Pasqualino
Reporter - Agência Brasil

São Paulo - Speaking yesterday (3) in São Paulo at the seminar, "Challenges to Brazilian Retailing, " sponsored by the Brazilian Association of Shopping Mall Store Owners (ALSHOP), the minister of Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade, Luiz Fernando Furlan, stressed the role of the retail sector in controlling domestic inflation, which currently runs around 4%.

"This victory of relatively stable prices does credit to the retail category for the democratic process of fair competition and the pressure exerted on suppliers," he affirmed.

According to Furlan, the decision by the government to ease the tax burden on capital goods (machinery and equipment) allowed the retail sector to refit by making machinery less expensive. "At the same time, we applied the policy of maintaining incentives to produce in Brazil and import equipment. This contributed to raising the efficiency of the entire system," he said.

The minister urged retail business owners to support passage of the bill creating the REDESIM (National Network for the Simplification of the Registration and Legalization of Firms and Businesses), which will expedite the processes of opening and shutting down firms.

"This bill is in the National Congress in the hands of its reporter, deputy Lupércio Ramos (PMDB-AM), whose report is nearly ready. Independently of the General Law of Micro and Small Enterprises, this bill benefits all types of firms by setting 15 days as the maximum time period for opening and shutting down a firm."

The REDESIM bill also establishes a single registry valid at federal, state, and municipal levels and cuts bureaucracy by permitting all the documents required to open a firm to be submitted in one place.

Translation: David Silberstein