Brazilian sender, Saudi receiver

The Brazilian Postal Service’s Easy Export system helps small- and medium-sized businesses to export. Saudi Arabia ranks among the top ten destinations of sales made via this service.

Isaura Daniel*
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São Paulo – For 14 years a simplified export system has been assisting Brazilian small- and medium-sized businesses to sell abroad. The service is called Exporta Fácil (Easy Export) and is provided by the state-owned Brazilian Postal Service (Correios, in Portuguese). The system has also helped boost exports from Brazil to the Arab world. Saudi Arabia ranked among the top ten destinations for goods mailed via the Postal Service in the first seven months of this year, and its imports increased by 800% from the same period in 2013.

Easy Export system has shipped 200,000 parcels

What are Brazilians selling to Arabs via the Postal Service? According to Exporta Fácil data, optical, photographical, measuring and medical-surgical instruments, pharmaceutical products, tanning and dying extracts, paints and polishes, aluminium and aluminium products, leather products, travel items, bags and purses, clothing and accessories, essential oils and aromatic resins, perfumery and toiletries.

“Arab countries have always been a destination for exports sent via Exporta Fácil. This year, however, exports to Saudi Arabia have grown exponentially,” says the Postal Service’s International Operations Support manager Daniel de Oliveira dos Santos. According to him, for the past three years, the Arab countries Algeria, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Syria and Tunisia have also imported products from Brazil using this service.

The surge in Exporta Fácil sales to Saudi Arabia was much higher than the program’s overall average sales growth from January to July, which was 3%. The leading destination was Hong Kong, followed by the United States, Japan, Germany, Bolivia, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Argentina and Saudi Arabia.

Year-to-date through July, the leading export items via the Brazilian Postal Service were products of animal origin, optical, photographical, measuring and medical-surgical instruments, clothing and accessories, jewellery, precious metals, costume jewellery, food preparations, books, newspapers and other graphic materials, electrical products, machinery and equipment, wood, charcoal and wood products, among others. Perishables cannot be exported.

The leading exporting state in this period was São Paulo, followed by Rio de Janeiro, Paraná, Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Pernambuco, Bahia, Mato Grosso do Sul and Ceará, according to information supplied by Postal Service’s press office.

For small and large businesses

According to the Postal Service, Exporta Fácil is available to companies of all sizes, even though it was originally designed to support small and medium businesses in going global or even sporadic exporters such as artisans and farmers. Currently, 90% of shipments via Exporta Fácil are made by small and medium businesses.

Sales worth up to US$ 50,000 are eligible for Exporta Fácil shipping. The Postal Service takes charge of shipping and customs clearance. It also registers the operation with the Federal Revenue’s Foreign Trade System, supplies importer or exporter registration and the Simplified Export Statement, at no additional cost.

According to the Postal Service’s press office, rather than filling in a large number of documents, the exporter fills in only one, the AirWay Bill, which contains shipping information. Packages weighing up to 30 kilos, with a sum of dimensions up to and including three meters can be shipped. The service is available for any destination in the world and may be purchased at any post office in Brazil.

Ever since Exporta Fácil was created, exports to 140 countries have been made; the service has been used by 11,000 enterprises to ship 200,000 volumes. The system was listed at the Universal Postal Union Congress (UPU) in Qatar, 2012, as one of the tools postal services around the world should use in order to develop their activities and expand global trade.

*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça