"Look at agriculture. The companies in this sector are producing for the domestic market, but they are also exporting," he said.

"They need to be excellent in both quality and cost. Not just quality and cost of the final product, but of the whole supply chain, of producing, transporting, and everything else," he added.

"Their internal operations need to be very competitive and efficient because they are competing with other regions to conquer the European market."

Dr Gustavo Loyola, economist and former president of Brazil's central bank, reaffirmed this point and said that competitiveness in global markets was going to be driven by effective use of IT.

"Brazil isn't as competitive as it could be and our domestic prices are very high in some prices compared to other foreign countries. We are expensive in both tradeable goods and the services sector," explained Loyola.