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90<br />

in Congress and encouraged the Brazilian side to join in the efforts for that<br />

purpose. [...] The German party reaffirmed its strong interest in the opening up<br />

of the reinsurance market. Brazil welcomed this interest and emphasized its<br />

commitment to the modernization of the sector. The German side raised concerns<br />

with high taxation of the insurance market and double taxation (in particular,<br />

COFINS and PIS on provisions). The Brazilian side recalled that its tax<br />

system is essentially the same for national and foreign companies and does<br />

not intend to discriminate Germany, neither in a positive nor a negative way. At<br />

the same time, reminded that the current double taxation bilateral agreement<br />

is favorable to the large majority of German and Brazilian business circles. [...]<br />

Both sides referred to the Third Meeting of Heads of State and Government<br />

of the European Union and of Mercosul, to be held in May 2004 in Mexico in<br />

the margins of the EU-Latin America Summit, and praised the decision to give<br />

a new impetus to economic/trade negotiations and to call a meeting between<br />

negotiators at the ministerial level in Brussels on November 12. As the biggest<br />

economies within their respective integration areas, Brazil and Germany<br />

renewed their commitment to progress in the EU-Mercosul negotiations and<br />

expressed their hope that the next meeting would help to further advance the<br />

process. Both sides agreed that the conclusion of an association agreement<br />

will be determinant in stimulating trade and investment flows.” 256<br />

Economic relations between Germany and Brazil are not limited to the trade sector,<br />

German direct investment in Brazil has also reached a historically high level: São<br />

Paulo is the worldwide largest location of German industry, only being surpassed by<br />

the German Ruhrgebiet region (which is not a single city). Currently 1,200 German<br />

companies operate in Brazil and employ more than 250,000 people, mainly in the<br />

industrial sector:<br />

“Concentration on the industrial sector: According to numbers provided by the<br />

Central Bank of the country in 1995 in Brazil there were the following distributions:<br />

automobile production & manufacture of components 32%, machinery<br />

and equipment 12%, chemicals 10%, pharmaceutics 9%, services sector 9%,<br />

iron & steel 8%, electro-technics and telecommunication products 7%, food<br />

processing 3% and basic materials sector (agriculture and mining) 2%.<br />

German production in Latin America four times as high as exports to the region:<br />

The significance of the German engagement in Latin America becomes<br />

apparent from the fact that the production volume of German subsidiaries<br />

in Latin America, a total of 65.3 billion in 2001, exceeded the total German<br />

exports to the region (16 billion) by more than four times. Of the total value of<br />

256 REPORT OF THE 2003 GERMAN-BRAZILIAN ECONOMIC MEETING (XXX MEETING OF THE JOINT<br />

COMMISSION ON ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND XXI ENTREPRENEURIAL MEETING), see: http://www.iberoamerikaverein.de.

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