São Paulo – Brazil’s leather and shoe production machinery sector aims to export more. The sector released a new partnership with the Brazilian Export and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex) forecasting investment of R$ 1.78 million (US$ 870,000) in actions to promote Brazilian equipment abroad over the next two years. The agreement was presented on Tuesday (31), in the city of Novo Hamburgo, by the Apex and the Brazilian Association of Industries of Machinery and Equipment for Leather, Footwear and Related Products (Abrameq).
The partnership has been in operation for ten years, but, according to the president at Abrameq, Marlos Schmidt, there are some novelties for the coming period. One is the fostering the industry’s development of equipment with competitive design, which includes the appearance of the machinery, process, ergonomy and operator safety optimisation and productivity gains, among others. Professionals from abroad will be called to evaluate equipment and decide how they may be improved in these areas.
Another innovative aspect will be the development of a virtual factory, which will bring together mock-ups and technology, through which the Brazilian machinery and their operation may be shown at fairs and missions abroad. Schmidt explains that one of the difficulties for promotion abroad is transport of the equipment. “Clients are anxious to see the machine in operation,” said Schmidt. The virtual factory will solve this matter and will be an instrument to show the technology produced in Brazil.
Apart from these two, the project, named “Machinery By Brasil”, contemplates traditional promotion techniques, like promotion in fairs, trade delegations, development of buyer projects (in which importers are invited to business roundtables in Brazil) and technical trips, talks about the Brazilian technology in markets abroad. The project includes 71 companies, of which 45 are already exporters.
Over the next two years, the actions will be turned mainly to Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, in South America, as well as India and South Africa. According to Schmidt, the companies in the project choose the target markets, according to information about production in the destinations. In recent years, he pointed out; Arab nations have not been chosen. The signing of the partnership was by the president at the Apex, Maurício Borges, and by Schmidt.
The companies participating in the project had export revenues of US$ 12.7 million in 2009. Last year, revenues reached US$ 14.2 million. The figures for 2010 were not informed.
*Translated by Mark Ament
