São Paulo – The Brazilian automobile industry has revised its automobile, truck and bus export projections upward. A total of 540,000 vehicles are expected to be shipped abroad this year, 7.6% more than last year.
The forecast contrasts starkly with the previous one, which estimated a 3.4% decline at 485,000 units sold. From January to October, 438,200 vehicles were exported, 4.1% more than in the same period of last year, generating revenues of US$ 12.8 billion, 21.3% more than in 2010.
Upon announcing the revision, the chairman of the National Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association (Anfavea), Cledorvino Belini, said the industry is performing well on the domestic front as well.
“Last Friday (4th) we reached the milestone of 3 million units sold [this year], which goes to show the strength of the Brazilian market,” said Belini, emphasizing that in October, domestic sales of national and imported vehicles dropped by 10% when compared with the preceding month, and by 7.5% compared with the same period of last year.
Belini is expecting sales to rise in November and December. Still, he says, the domestic sales growth projection has been maintained at 5%, from 3.515 million vehicles last year to 3.69 million this year – on the condition, he said, that the credit supply increases and interest rates decline.
To the Anfavea chairman, consumers are behaving with greater caution, which he ascribes to the news of the United States’ economy slowdown and Greece’s foreign debt turmoil. Still, Belini believes this is a comfortable moment for businessmen.
According to him, not even the unfavourable domestic sales result in October is cause for concern. Belini denied that the raised Tax on Industrialized Goods (IPI, in the Portuguese acronym) on imported vehicles has already had consequences, and claimed that the decreased sales were partly due to the smaller number of working days last month. To him, the higher IPI will start affecting sales in the second half of December, once inventories have been depleted.
Anfavea has maintained its forecast of producing 1.1% more vehicles this year than in the last one, when 3.381 million units were made.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
