Regimes Especiais de Importação e "Ex-Tarifários": o caso do Brasil

One important difficulty for the achievement of a common trade policy in Mercosur is the difference between the import tariffs charged by the countries members and those established by the bloc´s Common External Tariff (CET), which is generated by the existence of special regimes of imports. The purpose of this paper is to characterize the main non-preferential special regimes of imports in use in Brazil, in 2003, and the "ex-tarifários" for capital goods. The analysis includes the identification of imported products, the tariff revenue loss and the importance of the benefited sectors and regions. The imports under the special regimes - Duty Drawback Regime (drawback), Free Zone of Manaus (FZM), Automotive, Regime Aduaneiro especial de Entreposto Industrial sob Controle Informativo (Recof) and others - totalized US$ 14 billion (29,1% of total imports), in 2003, and were responsible to a tariff revenue reduction of US$ 1.3 billion. The imports under the "ex-tarifários" were estimated in US$ 1 billion and its tariff revenue loss, US$ 107 million. The exports associated to drawback corresponded to 30% of total Brazilian exports. The FZM added value were approximately 50% of the Amazonas State GDP. The participation of the automotive sector in the industry GDP was 2% and the "ex-tarifarios" represented 8% of the capital goods imports.