São Paulo – Company Portas da Amazônia (Doors from the Amazon), located in the Ariquemes furniture hub, in Rondônia, closed its first exports early this year. Shipments went to Venezuela and to the United States. The factory already has contacts that may generate business with Peru and Bolivia.
Portas da Amazônia is part of a project by the Rondônia state branch of the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae), which aims at bringing countries that have borders with Northern Brazil closer. There is already a plan for integration of Brazil and Peru in progress.
"Infrastructure works, with the conclusion of the inter-oceanic highway, connecting Brazil to Ilo Port and Matarani, on the Pacific, should result in Business opportunities for small companies in three countries (Brazil, Peru and Bolivia)," said Pedro Afonso Coelho Figueira, the coordinator of the Market Access and Technological Innovation Unit (Uamit).
Aware of the opportunities on the foreign market, the factory should expand its productive capacity by 30%. The organisation produces 6,000 doors a month and generates 45 direct jobs. “We are investing around 200,000 Brazilian reals (US$ 114,000) in the purchase of five new machines," said businessman Luiz Carlos Kozersky, who has been working in the lumber sector for over 30 years and established the company in 2002, in the city that is located 195 kilometres away from state capital Porto Velho.
Kozersky explained that he has lived all economic cycles of the lumber industry in the state of Rondônia and for this reason decided to seek the legal requirements for total development of his sector. “Our factory uses 90% of the residues of lumber yards in the region. The doors are made out of plywood and only the face is solid wood," he explained.
The company produces from wooden doors ranging from low to high value-added products. On the domestic market it supplies mainly to the states of Rondônia, Acre, Amazonas and Roraima.
North
The North is one of the five Brazilian regions and is the largest, covering an area of 3,869,637 square kilometres. It includes seven states: Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins. There, the equatorial climate is predominant, except for the case of Northern Pará, the south of Amazonas and Rodnônia, where the climate is tropical.
The economy is based on extracting products like latex, assai, wood and nuts. The region is also rich in ores. Among the mining areas in the region are Carajás Mountain Range (in Pará), the most important area for mining in the country, where a large part of the iron ore exported by the country originates, and Navio Mountain Range (in Amapá), which is rich in manganese.
Contact
Portas da Amazônia
Telephone: (+55 69) 3536-2838
E-mail: lckozerski@hotmail.com
*Translated by Mark Ament
