Brazil's Minister of Industry, Foreign Trade and Services, Marcos Pereira, and the UK Secretary of State for International Trade, Liam Fox, signed an agreement on Thursday (Dec. 7) in Brasília, providing for the dissemination of Building Information Modelling (BIM) for the construction industry.

According to Marcos Pereira, this is an incentive to promote sustainable growth and trade exchanges between the two countries in the areas of civil construction and digital economy. The document was also signed by the Executive Secretary of the Investment Partnership Programme (IPP), Moreira Franco.

During the meeting, the minister and Secretary Fox also reaffirmed their support of the negotiations for the Free Trade Agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, and pledged to continue discussions on barriers to bilateral trade between Brazil and the United Kingdom.

The two officials also confirmed their intent to work on a four-year cooperation programme focused on trade facilitation and regulatory issues within the Prosperity Fund.

The programme has three main goals: promoting economic development and growth in the two countries through increased trade, improving the efficiency of operations and creating better mutual understanding of each other's regulatory environments.

The two also agreed on the creation of a management group to drive and implement a trading programme and act jointly with the Brazilian government.

In 2006, Brazil and the United Kingdom established the Joint Economic and Trade Committee. The JETC was conceived as a platform for dialogue between Brazil's MDIC and the UK's Department for International Trade (DIT).

The committee aims to improve the environment for doing business and expand bilateral trade. In it, activities are developed through working groups devoted to topics such as Innovation, Trade Facilitation, Intellectual Property and Investment.

Intellectual property

Marcos Pereira and his UK counterpart also took part in the signing ceremony of a Memorandum between Brazil's National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) and the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO). The parties agreed to continue to cooperate in Intellectual Property matters.

The commitments undertaken in the Memorandum will be implemented by a work plan, which will allow the two countries to share best practices both in the administrative side of patent management and examination methods.