Doha – Traffic signal manufacturing company Tráfit, based in the state of Bahia, has entered the foreign market recently, and is already looking at establishing an assembly line for traffic lights in the Middle East. According to the owner of the company, Mário Eugênio, they work with large-sized products, therefore freight costs for exporting them finished are too high.
“To us, it would be more interesting to manufacture the lights at the place in which they are going to be installed. In addition to reducing costs, that would help stimulate the local economy,” said the businessman.
The company has a pilot project in Nigeria worth US$ 2.5 million. According to Eugênio, should the deal come to fruition, total investment may rise to US$ 25 million. Tráfit began exporting last year, by means of a supply contract for construction company Odebrecht in Angola.
The businessman is studying which location in the Middle East is best for establishing a second assembly line abroad. Besides Doha, him and his company colleagues are going to visit Dubai, in the Emirates, and Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia. “We also had a contact with Iraq,” said Eugênio, who participated in the South America-Arab Countries Business Forum, in the capital of Qatar.
He underscored, however, that the option for one city does not preclude the implementation of assembly lines in other cities. “One thing does not exclude the other, our interest is in having [the structure] wherever we have a supply contract, wherever there is a market,” he asserted.
Tráfit, according to Eugênio, implements highway projects and makes different types of traffic signals. The flagship product, however, is elliptical-shaped traffic lights, known as “cocoons, which, in addition to the green, yellow and red lights, may include chronometers to indicate how much time is left before the colour changes, and panels for electronic messages. “The chronometer helps reduce the rate of accidents at the lights by 25%,” he ensured.
Established seven years ago, the company supplies signals to municipalities in all of Brazil. It employs 370 people and owns factories in the states of Bahia, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
