São Paulo – Sales of paints should grow 3.4% in Brazil this year, to reach 1.145 billion litres, according to forecasts by the Brazilian Paint Manufacturers Association (Abrafati). Real estate, the auto industry and infrastructure works should boost the sector.
Last year, paint producers had a slight retraction in sales, 2.1% less than in 2008. But that, according to the executive president at Abrafati, Dilson Ferreira, was an exceptional year. "If we compare 2009 to 2007, sales grew 6%,” he said. According to him, the growing trajectory should remain in coming years.
"We have many positive factors to stimulate direct sales of paint, as well as painted goods, among them greater access to credit, lower interest rates, a reduction in the industrialized product tax (IPI) levied on some products, greater levels of employment and income as well as a great volume of funds for housing,” said Ferreira.
The executive president at Abrafati believes, however, that companies with an export profile should have some difficulty in 2010. Last year, paint sales on the Brazilian market totalled 1.1 billion litres. In 2006, the total had been 968 million litres of paint.
*Translated by Mark Ament
