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The Foreign Trade Chamber (Camex), of the Ministry of Economy, decided this Wednesday (9) to reduce to zero -until December 31 of this year- the rate of the import tax on paddy and processed rice.
The Executive Management Committee of Camex established that the reduction is limited to a quota of 400 thousand tons of rice with husks without parboiling and semi-milled and blanched rice, not parboiled.
Camex’s objective is to reduce the cost of imported rice to increase supply and contain the high price of the product in the domestic market.
The increase in the price of food in the basic basket has worried the government. President Jair Bolsonaro met this Wednesday with the president of the Brazilian Association of Supermarkets (Abras), João Sanzovo Neto, to discuss the matter. According to Sanzovo Neto, supermarkets are not “villains” when it comes to high prices.
On Tuesday (8), Bolsonaro said that he made a “call” to the owners of supermarkets to stop the increase in the price of rice.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Justice notified representatives of supermarkets and food producers to explain in five days the increase in the price of food in the basic basket.
In August, rice imports increased 28.4% compared to the same month last year. The National Supply Company (Conab) estimates that Brazil should buy 1.1 million tons of rice abroad this harvest, around 10% of what the country consumes (10.8 million tons).
To try to reduce the prices of the product in the domestic market, the government considered reducing to zero the Common External Tariff (TEC) of 12% on rice imports from countries outside Mercosur. But on September 1, the Rice Sector Chamber of the Ministry of Agriculture, which involves producers and industries, voted against the measure.
The price of food stood out in the country’s high inflation of 0.24% in August, according to data published by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) on Wednesday.
The Comprehensive Consumer Price Index (IPCA) rose 2.44% in 12 months, while food inflation rose 8.83% in the period.
This increase is not only responsible for food. Most are at record prices in the field. But two have attracted attention in recent days: rice, which rose 19.2% in the year, and soybean oil, which rose 18.6% in the period.
