SPECIAL | An Economy for Tomorrow – Economic Diversification

Bruno Pacheco – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – Acting in the forest in a sustainable way to generate wealth for the population is one of the challenges of the Amazon Biotechnology Center (CBA), an agency linked to the Superintendence of the Manaus Free Trade Zone (Suframa) and the Ministry of Economy (ME). In a note sent to REVISTA CENARIUM, the CBA argues that the bioeconomic potential should serve to generate employment and income, as well as environmentally responsible products.

“We know that the activities developed in the Industrial Pole of Manaus (PIM) contribute strongly to the regional economy, besides having positive environmental effects recognized internationally. The bioeconomy can, precisely, collaborate to spread this development, the wealth generated primarily in the state capital to the communities in the countryside”, stresses the CBA, in a statement.

The agency argues that the economic segment has the ability to transform the reality of communities, such as those in the city of Maués, in the countryside of Amazonas, which have been having positive results in the cultivation and transformation of traditional guaraná, which guarantees the possibility of production gains and adds value to the productive chains.

“The city of Maués demonstrates how the advances in the bioeconomy can contribute to the generation of quality employment and income. This is because the correct use of natural inputs can leverage endogenous production chains, allowing gains in scale and adding value to products and processes”, emphasizes the CBA note.

Challenges

Despite the great biodiversity, the CBA informs that one of the biggest challenges to expand the bioeconomy in the Amazon is the low number of companies in the secondary sector that use bioinsuments, the segment faces “villains” such as the logistical difficulty for suppliers of raw materials, the precariousness of transportation, in addition to the lack of land title regularization, which makes it difficult to raise funds.

To try to stimulate the biotechnology entrepreneurship, especially in the North of the country, Suframa’s Administration Council (CAS) regulated, in 2021, the Resolution nº 2 that establishes criteria for the access to the fiscal incentives foreseen in the Decree-Law nº 1.435/1975, extending the possibilities of industrialization of regional raw material to the whole Western Amazon.

“In general terms, Resolution nº 2 rules that the company can use regional raw material in an absolute way in production, that is, it would be 50% plus one, as well as it can be used in a relative way, when the local input can be mixed with several other inputs during production, but it would relatively surpass the percentage of the other materials used in the final product, whether in volume, weight, or quantity. There is also the use by importance, in which the product can have the participation, for example, of only 3% of a regional raw material, but without this quantity the essence of the product is lost”, highlights the CBA, in the note.