📋 Tender Overview
Representatives of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPC), the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) and the business mobilization by Innovation (MEI), were today with the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Luciana Santos. The reason for the visit is the concern with the trial that can happen on Thursday (12/06), in the Supreme Court (STF), about the constitutionality of the collection of contributions of intervention in the economic domain (CIDE) on remittances of payments abroad.
The entities expressed their concern in an opinion article defending resources to the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FNDCT).
CIDE is the main source of FNDCT financing. And the fund is the main instrument of public funding of science, technology and innovation in Brazil. It supports scientific research, qualified human resources formation, technological innovation in companies, research infrastructure and the development of national strategic projects.
Judgment in the Supreme Court may exempt from the contribution the payment of various items that, according to the most advanced scientific doctrine, constitute technology. The thesis is that CIDE should only focus on the formal importation of technology, that is, only physical goods should be taxed, excluding what concerns specialized technical services, technical assistance and royalties.
This thesis ignores the most modern scientific-technological revolutions that intertwine technological bases materials and intangible technical-technological services. It is this set of tangible and intangible elements that structure the ongoing productive revolutions. In other words, technology is not just physical and tangible object. It is also a series of processes and services.
CIDE accounts for 74% of the composition of FNDCT. Over the past three years, investments in science, technology and innovation through FNDCT have increased more than seven times compared to 2022. They went from 2 billion to 14.7 billion in 2025.
It is these resources that enable the expansion and modernization of research laboratories in all regions of the country; monitoring and facing natural disasters related to climate change; and innovative projects that make our companies more competitive and productive, boosting the creation of new goods and services and building solutions to the population and the country.
Restricting FNDCTs investment capacity can compromise Brazils future as an innovative, developed and sovereign nation.
