Construction industry and retail invest
O Estado de S. Paulo
Entrepreneurs of the industry and the retail of building materials speed up the investment plans. They want to take advantage of the strong growth of the real estate market and also the increase of the consumption of their products. The reduction of the Excise Tax (IPI), the credit expansion and the improvement of the income give vigor to the expansion. According to the survey of the Brazilian Construction Materials Industry Association (Abramat), in May, 71% of the industries of the sector intended to invest in the increase of the productive capacity of the plants in the next 12 months. The result is more than two times bigger than that registered in May last year (33%), it is above that registered in April this year (66%) and it is near the peak, which was in April 2008, when 72% of the businessmen informed they would increase the investments", says the president of the entity, Melvyn Fox.
Leroy Merlin, leader in the retail, will invest R$ 1 billion (US$ 555.6 million) over the next five years in the country to get to 40 stores until 2015. Today, the French chain has 19 points of sale across six States and the Federal District. The amount is exactly the double of that invested over the past five years, says the CEO, Alain Ryckeboer. Until March, the sales of the company grew 40%, well above the goal that was 30% and of the average registered by the IBGE that was of 16.5% in the period for the retail of the sector.
The Tigre group, which manufactures PVC pipes and connections, brushes, doors and windows, has sped up the investments. The company invested R$ 150 million (US$ 83.3 million) to increase the productive capacity of the plants. Even with such expansion, today there are plants working with only 15% of idleness. This year, the company will disburse another R$ 200 million (US$ 111.1 million) in the development of new technologies. What led to the decision of increasing the investments was the exceptional sales performance of the company, which grew 30% in the first four months compared to the same period of 2009.
"The situation now is manageable, with the extension of the time of delivery", says André Martin, commercial officer of Fise, an industry specialized in locks and handles for aluminum frames. In normal times, the time for the delivery of components was 7 days. Now it gets to a month. The longer time of delivery does not result only from the increase in the sales, which grew 73% between January and May compared to 2009 and 32% compared to 2008, but also to shortage of raw materials. The company has just invested R$ 1.6 million (US$ 888.9 billion) in equipment, facilities, management, innovation and research.