APEXBRASIL AND COVID-19: HOW DID AN EXPORT AND INVESTMENT PROMOTION AGENCY COPE WITH THE PANDEMIC?

Autores

• Germano Adolfo Gehrke FURB - Universidade Regional de Blumenau https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9448-7347
• Desiree Caroline Monteiro Keverkamp FURB - Universidade Regional de Blumenau
• Roger Luiz Nascimento Oliveira FURB - Universidade Regional de Blumenau

Resumo

The Brazilian Trade and investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil) is the official institution responsible for export promotion, foreign investment attraction, and internationalization of Brazilian companies. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the agency has (i) revised its Strategic Plan 2020-2023 in three occasions, and (ii) continued to develop a series of actions towards its goals taking into account the adverse event. This article analyses ApexBrasil’s procedures in both dimensions and concludes that the Agency was able to revise its Strategic Plan 2020-2023 responding to the unfriendly environment in a proactive way. It also concludes that its actions towards export promotion, foreign investment attraction and internationalization were aligned with contemporary theory defining resilience, ApexBrasil proposed events that helped companies in three functions of the ability to perform resilience, absorb, recover, and adapt to the critical situations created during the three years analyzed, in a timely and proportional manner. ApexBrasil did not perform the first function, planning and preparation, due to the uniqueness of the Covid-19 pandemic and impossibility to foresee its occurrence.