Camex waives import taxes on a further 25 products

The Executive Management Committee (Gecex), a collegiate nucleus of the Foreign Trade Chamber (Camex), approved a reduction in import tariffs on an additional 25 products. The amendments to the Import Tax cover items listed in four resolutions published in the Federal Official Gazette on February 23.

The measures allow for tax exemptions on goods that are not produced in Mercosur, guarantee the normal and fluid supply of goods in the bloc, facilitate the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as improve the measurement of trade by creating further specific codes for the Common Mercosur Nomenclature (NCM).

Resolution No. 165 reduces the Common External Tariff (TEC) definitively for products classified in 11 NCM codes, all to the minimum level of 0% or 2% of TEC. The cuts include medicines, chemical preparations for photographic use, discs for coinage, nickel-titanium-based wires, aluminum foils, vacuum switches, camera lenses, and gas masks.

Resolution No. 161 establishes 11 temporary tariff reductions for reasons of shortages for chemicals, writing or drawing inks, activated carbon, urethane laminates, and polyethylene terephthalate, as well as high tenacity polyester yarns and fibers of carbon. In these cases, the products had tariff reductions in the import tax to 0%, for up to 365 days, according to quotas and deadlines established in the resolution.

Resolution 162 lowers the import tax to 0% for three new pharmaceutical ingredients for the manufacture of medicines used in hospitalizations – cisatracurium besylate, methotrimeprazine maleate, and rocuronium bromide. With these inputs, the list of temporary tariff reductions aimed at facing Covid-19, covered by Gecex Resolution No. 17/2020, now includes 564 products.

Finally, Camex Resolution 164 converts 17 NCM codes, without TEC amendment, into 45 codes, in order to meet Brazil’s international commitments arising from the Minamata Convention on Mercury and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. The resolution seeks to improve the measurement of trade in these goods through the creation of specific NCM codes.