São Paulo – Morocco, an Arab country in North Africa, imported 264 motorcycles from the state of Amazonas this year. The figures were supplied by the Foreign Trade Secretariat (Secex) of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, and this represents significant growth over the same period last year, when the state, which is in Northern Brazil, exported just 32 motorcycles to the Moroccan market.
Sales generated revenues of US$ 602,500, against US$ 79,700 from January to September 2008. This year, Amazonas was the only state in Brazil to export motorcycles to the Arab world and Morocco was the only Arab country to import the product from Brazil. Brazilian motorcycle production is concentrated in Manaus Industrial Hub, in 12 motorcycle factories. Apart from them, there are just another two factories in the country.
The purchase from Morocco was small if compared to the total number of motorcycles exported by Brazil from January to September this year: 42,541 units. According to the executive director at the Brazilian Association of the Makers of Motorcycles, Auto-Cycles, Scooters and Bicycles (Abraciclo), Moacyr Alberto Paes, the main foreign markets for motorcycles made in Brazil are the United States, Mexico and Argentina.
According to Paes, in Africa, where Morocco is, as is the case with the Middle East, competition with suppliers like China and India makes exports harder. He said that in Brazil motorcycles are produced according to the local program for control of environmental pollution. For this reason, not always do they manage to compete with the Chinese product on the international market, in terms of prices, as the Asian country does not use the same control methods. “We do not produce different models for the local and foreign market,” explained Paes.
There is also the matter of distance, which makes competition with products from China and India more complicated, as Africa and the Middle East, where the Arab countries are located, are much closer to the Asian nations. However, despite their not being the main markets, Brazil sells motorcycles to several African countries. In the list are South Africa, Angola, Ghana, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Zambia, as well as Morocco.
Brazil is the fourth main global producer of motorcycles. Last year, the country produced 2.126 million units, and this year, up to September, production had totalled 1.127 million motorcycles, according to the Abraciclo. The majority of the motorcycles produced, according to the organisation, are sold on the domestic market. Exports, in the first nine months of the year, represented just 3.7% of the total produced. On the domestic market, 90% of the motorcycles sold are up to 150 cc.
*Translated by Mark Ament