AIAB (Aerospace Industries Association of Brazil) took part in a series of debates of interest to the IDB (Defense Industrial Base) during the 13th Defense Industry Forum in Brasilia.
The event, held on the 25th at the Ministry of Defense’s Higher Defense School (ESD), was attended by the association’s president, Julio Shidara, and the board’s special advisor, Verônica Prates.
Secretary General Luiz Henrique Pochyly da Costa and Deputy Secretary for Defense Products Juliana Ribeiro Larenas, among other authorities, participated on behalf of the Ministry of Defense.
The focus of the Forum was to gather contributions to improve legal instruments such as Law 12.598/2012, which deals with the procurement, contracting and development of defense products and systems, and the Special Bidding Term (TLE).
The AIAB suggested as possible improvements the requirement of minimum local content and the application of a price margin in favor of the national supplier in MD acquisitions, as the White House recently did when it issued an Executive Order determining that the “Buy-American Act”, created in the 1930s to deal with the challenges of the period of the great American depression, would still be applied today to the maximum extent permitted by law. The measure raised the requirement for local content to 95% in purchases of iron and steel products and maintained the 50% overpricing in favor of the US supplier in purchases by its Department of Defense.
The AIAB president also stressed the importance of building an environment of legal certainty so that legal instruments that are already available can be used.
“To this end, a collective effort involving the Public Administration, the Federal Attorney General’s Office (AGU) and the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) is essential to create an environment of legal certainty for public managers to act,” said Shidara.
“We can cite as examples of available but underused legal instruments the TLE itself, highlighted by the Secretary General of the MD at the opening of the Forum, as well as the ETEC and the State Purchase with Local Preference Margin, provided for in the National Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation 2016 – 2022,” he concluded.
*** Translated by the DEFCONPress FYI Team ***