Geovana Pagel*
São Paulo – For some Brazilian exporters, participating in trade fairs in Arab countries is a guarantee of closing good deals with the Middle East and North Africa. One such example is the Digicon group, based in the city of Gravataí, in the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, which started the year by betting on conquering new customers in the Arab world. From January 21 to 23, the company introduced its Catrax line of turnstiles for access control at Intersec 2007 – one of the most important fairs for electronic security in the Middle East, held in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
"We were visited by importers from several Arab countries," said the export manager Guilherme Hildebrand. According to him, the Arabs were very welcoming, and enjoyed very much the product presented at the fair. "We received many price quotes, especially from the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and we have already closed deals thanks to the contacts we made in the fair," he claimed.
According to Hildebrand, the Digicon turnstiles feature advanced technology and have been under development since 1993. He explained that approximately two years ago, the company decided to invest heavily on the foreign market, and now it exports to countries in Latin America, the United States and Europe. "Participation in the Dubai fair is part of a strategy to increase our foreign sales," he said.
This was not the first export from Digicon to an Arab country. In 2004, the Perto company, an automatic banking equipment manufacturer that also belongs to the Digicon group, sent a sample of five machines to Syria. The sample included a full Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) capable of executing several different operations, a withdrawal machine, a machine that receives payments and returns change in cash, and two banking information terminals (booths). The sale was closed after a visit by Syrian businessman Ali Nazzal, of the Nazzal Security Group.
The Digicon group
Digicon began operating in 1977, making high precision measuring systems for metallic and plastic part manufacturing machines. The company has a wide-ranging field of action, as it designs and develops industrial automation and process control equipment.
The group is comprised of three high-technology companies – Digicon, Perto and Numericon. Its main products include access controllers (turnstiles), highway traffic controllers, parking control systems (parking meters), electronic ticket systems for urban transportation, auxiliary equipment for the plastic processing industry, and parts for the aviation market.
The group owns a 30,000 square metre industrial plant in its headquarters in Gravataí, Rio Grande do Sul, as well as branches in the cities of Barueri and the capital São Paulo, in the southeastern state of São Paulo, and technical assistance centres in Salvador (capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia), Gravataí, Alphaville and Ribeirão Preto (both in São Paulo state), Rio de Janeiro (in the SE) and in Brazilian capital Brasília. With 100% national capital, the group develops, produces, sells and stores the vast majority of the parts used in its equipments.
Contact
www.digicon.com.br
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
