São Paulo – The turmoil in the Brazilian and Latin American neighboring economies, the usual destination for the plastic-industry machinery and equipment manufactured by Pronatec Equipamentos, made the company turn its attention to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. To export to North Africa and the Middle East countries became a short term goal – and the first steps to reach it were already taken by the São Paulo-based company.
Last week, sales manager Arnaldo Palermo took part in the business matchmaking organized by the Buyer Project of the Brazil Machinery Solutions (BMS) program, a partnership between the Brazilian Trade and Investments Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil) and the Brazilian Machinery and Equipment Industry Association (Abimaq). One of the meetings was with Egyptian buyer Sayed Morsy, the only Arab business owner to accept the invitation made by the organization to attend Plástico Brasil 2017.
“Morsy purchases large amounts of machinery from Asia and distributes them through the region. His company is very strong, conducting a lot of business in North Africa, mainly” says Palermo, who had his first meeting with an Arab buyer. “It’s been some time already that we were trying to find out how to contact them. We have been interested for years, but didn’t know how to take this first step.”
The manager admits that the mission is not an easy one. In the region, he would need to compete against Asian machinery, especially Chinese, who have a great advantage in price. “Our machinery, however, are high-quality and we offer a different type of client support,” he explains.
Another factor working against the company is logistic issues, since freight cost is high. So much so that Palermo doesn’t even think about exporting only components, only fully-assembled machines.
Pronatec, which is based on São Paulo’s west section, employs 60 people and has an extensive portfolio of special machines for the flexible and paper packaging industry. The manager didn’t reveal the company’s revenues, but admitted that exports account for less than 10% – according to him, the ideal would be for exports to generate 30% of revenues.
“We have a track record in exports to the United States, Colombia, Argentina. At Plástico Brasil we seized the opportunity and talked to buyers from other regions, such as Egypt and Russia,” says Palermo, who now is studying the prices offered by the buyers. “It was a very positive participation and we’re now waiting for the returns.”
According to Apex-Brasil, businesses generated by the Buyer Project at Plástico Brasil should reach USD 30.680 million, among deals signed at the fair and those to be signed in the next 12 months, including in the calculation all the participating countries – in addition to the Egyptian buyer, others came from Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, United States, India, Mexico and Russia. In all, 177 meetings with 26 manufacturers from the sector took place.
Contact info
Pronatec – Arnaldo Palermo
Phone: + 55 (11) 3948-1881
Email: vendas@pronatec.com.br
Website: www.pronatec.com.br
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
