Last Wednesday, June 12, FGV's vice president and Senator, Francisco Dornelles, took the May edition of the Macro Bulletin by the Brazilian Institute of Economics at FGV (IBRE) as a basis to give a speech about the bottlenecks in the Brazilian external accounts.  In the plenary sitting, Dornelles presented figures on the Brazilian trade balance - which from January to April this year registered a deficit of about USD 5 billion - and mentioned a 6.6% decrease in the volume of exports in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same period last year. By analyzing the scenario, the senator referred to the May edition of FGV/IBRE's Macro Bulletin, which shows that the export performance could be even worse in case a possible decrease in the competitiveness of manufactured items, mainly due to factors such as the rising unit cost of labor, the loss of Brazilian goods to China in Latin American markets, the economic crisis affecting the European Union, the country's deficiency of infrastructure in logistics and a reduction of energy costs, which was lower than anticipated.  Facing this situation, the senator asked the government to strive for a surplus or at least a balance in its current account and the withdrawal of all charges to capital inflow in the country. Furthermore, Dornelles talked about the need for agility in processes related to public-private partnerships and concessions in the areas of transport and energy, especially in the pre-salt. He went one step further to advocate the elimination of state bureaucracy, a fact that today raises difficulties in investments and raises the Brazil cost, and more austerity to fiscal and monetary policies, avoiding abrupt interventions in the exchange market.    Source: FGV/IBRE