CNI 5th national congress on industrial issues

CNI, the Brazilian confederation of industries, and NHO's main cooperation partner in Brazil, had its 5th national industry congress in Sao Paulo on December 1-2, 2010.

We were lucky to get an invitation to participate as the focus for this congress is national, and the number of foreign invited guests could easily be counted on one hand.

The delegates came from all over this enormous country, and represented federal and local politics, industry associations, labour unions, branch organizations and other important institutions in Brazilian business, economic and political life. The congress had a number of plenary sessions as well as special sessions for smaller fora.

Among the topics covered was macro economics, competitiveness of Brazilian industry, the future of small companies, education of specialist workers, innovation, environment, labour unions and working relations, investments and infrastructure. A  very comprehensive agenda as can be seen, and in many ways reflecting the increased importance of Brazil on the global scene as well as the strong domestic economic development.

Below I will just try to reflect some of the discussions and impressions that this congress made on a foreign observer, not the least as Norway is in the middle of developing our new strategy towards Brazil.

The debate on competitiveness was led by a panel consisting of the presidents of CNI, BNDES (the national bank for development) and FIESP, the employer association in Sao Paulo which is by far the biggest and strongest of the states, and the Governor of the state of Minas.

"Growing more, better and faster" was the slogan used, and many were critical to the relatively slow growth in Brazil over the last few years!

A key question asked was what kind of Brazil do we actually want for the future, and how do we get there..?

The agreed answer was, interestingly enough; the sky used to be the limit, but its not anymore..!

To make the necessary progress, it was agreed that fighting corruption and a completely new focus on education will be required, and the demand for more action and less talk was also heard on several occasions..! The Brazilian industry is not considered sufficiently competitive and that will now be on top of the domestic agenda as it is seen as absolutely necessary to achieve the outlined goals.

Another interesting debate was related to who Brazil consider to be their main competitors in international trade and industry.

All participants mentioned USA and Japan as the most important competitors historically, and China in todays world.

Interestingly enough, neither of these countries were mentioned in relation to the future, but rather countries like India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

In this context it was also said that fighting the domestic nationalism and proud would be a key factor to improve future competitiveness.

This would include the willingness to learn other languages and to reduce significantly the aspect of internal competition between the various states.

All in all lots of food for thought from a very ambitious country that no longer sees the sky as the limit. And maybe some interesting learning for a small nation with high ambitions too....?