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Good practice Imported

PEIEX — Apex-Brasil's Export Qualification Programme for SMEs

Brazil · Brasília · See the Brazil profile · See the Brasília profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 63% 62/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Apex-Brasil's PEIEX has qualified 30,000+ Brazilian SMEs for export in 20+ years; its 2021–23 cohort moved 827 of 5,334 firms into exporting, worth US$3.16bn — though no independent impact study exists yet.

30,000+
Companies qualified for export since creation
827 of 5,334
Firms that began exporting, 2021-2023 cycle
US$3.16bn
Exports generated, 2021-2023 cycle

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Apex-Brasil (Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency)
Period
2003–present (Apex-Brasil); PEIEX 20+ years, current cycle 2025–2027
Keywords
export promotion, trade facilitation, SME internationalization

Context

PEIEX (Programa de Qualificação para Exportação), run by Apex-Brasil, prepares small and medium Brazilian companies to start or expand exporting through diagnostic consulting, training and market-entry support, operating for more than 20 years.

Results

Apex-Brasil reports PEIEX has qualified more than 30,000 companies for export since creation. In its 2021-2023 cycle, 5,334 companies took part, of which 827 began exporting, generating US$3.16 billion in exports.

Conclusions

These figures are echoed by trade press but come from the implementing agency itself; a 2022 academic paper explicitly proposed a future research agenda for evaluating Apex-Brasil's causal impact, meaning no rigorous counterfactual study of PEIEX currently exists.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Apex-Brasil export-diagnostic consultants and trainers

Conditions for success

  • diagnostic consulting tailored to SME export readiness
  • sustained multi-year cycles (2025-2027 cycle ongoing)

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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