Isaura Daniel*<\/STRONG><\/P> S\u00e3o Paulo – Around 40 years ago, the women who lived in the city of Monte Si\u00e3o, mostly daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters of Italians, knitted at home, while their husbands worked on the land. The women knitted by hand. When, in the 1970s, tourists started showing interest in the hot springs of the city, the women from Monte Si\u00e3o started selling their knitted jerseys in the windows of their houses. From then to the purchase of their first machines, it took just a few years and Monte Si\u00e3o soon started being called the National Knit Capital.<\/P> The production of knitted jerseys is now one of the main activities of the small city, hidden among the mountains of the state of Minas Gerais. There are around 1,200 industries in the sector, all small, according to Jo\u00e3o Tadeu Dorta Machado, who is the president of the Monte Si\u00e3o Trade and Industry Association (ACIMS) and director for Industry, Trade, Tourism and Culture at the City Hall. This year, the industries expect a 15% to 20% increase in sales, according to Machado. Currently, their production capacity is four million items a month.<\/P> The city is now less than two months away from the sales season, which begins in March and ends in July. The knitted items, despite no longer being made out of wool or thick threads as they were in the past, are still sought most for the winter. That is, incidentally, one of the efforts made by businessmen from Monte Si\u00e3o: showing consumers and retailers that knit jerseys may also be used in the warm season. Each year, the city promotes a fair for the sale of the jerseys. This year, the National Knit Fair (Fenat) will take place between April 15 and 23.<\/P> During the fair, which includes around 60 exhibitors, retailers and consumers from all around Brazil visit the city. Fenat is going to take place between 7:00 am and 07:00 pm in the Monte Si\u00e3o Exhibition Centre. Tourists, however, do not only visit the city at this time of the year. They continue travelling to the city to visit the neighbouring springs. Monte Si\u00e3o is, for example, 70 kilometres away from the city of \u00c1guas de Lind\u00f3ia and 30 kilometres away from Serra Negra. Both cities are famous for their hot springs.<\/P> For export<\/STRONG><\/P> Importers, however, only come to the city once in a while. In Monte Si\u00e3o just four companies export. "We participated in some fairs in Paris and Las Vegas, and have representatives abroad, but over the last four years the barrier for sales abroad has been China. Some companies export, but at small volumes and the products are more elaborate, with very Brazilian characteristics," stated Machado.<\/P> Boutiques in Europe, the Caribbean and Saudi Arabia, according to him, are among the foreign clients of the knit industries of Monte Si\u00e3o. The most recent fashion parades, however, included knitted products, and this may boost the sales of businessmen from the city. The industries are betting on that to sell more on the domestic market. What may affect the sales of knit products, however, is the forecast of warmer temperatures all around the world.<\/P> However, the producers of knitted products in Monte Si\u00e3o are going to work to make their industry grow. According to Machado, an effort is already being made in this direction. Businessmen are investing in training and are entering the fashion world to present novelties and innovation in all their collections. The capacity of design, according to Machado, is one of the main characteristics of the knitted products made in Monte Si\u00e3o.<\/P> There are in the city around 800 shops of knitted jerseys. Apart from the industrialization and sale of jerseys, however, other sectors also power the economy of Monte Si\u00e3o. They are the production of porcelain and agriculture.<\/P> Service<\/STRONG><\/P> FENAT *Translated by Mark Ament<\/STRONG><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The city of Monte Si\u00e3o is in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and has become famous in Brazil for its production of knitted products. In March the sales season begins, and the high point is a fair in April. Monte Si\u00e3o has a capacity for production of four million products a month and hopes to increase production by 20% up to 2007.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-economy"},"wps_subtitle":"The city of Monte Si\u00e3o is in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and has become famous in Brazil for its production of knitted products. In March the sales season begins, and the high point is a fair in April. Monte Si\u00e3o has a capacity for production of four million products a month and hopes to increase production by 20% up to 2007.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
From April 15 to 23
From 07:00 am to 07:00 pm
Monte Si\u00e3o Exhibition and Leisure Centre
Further information: (+55 35) 3621-3382<\/P>