Industry aimed at internal market is optimistic
Folha de S. Paulo
The internal market will support the GDP again in 2010 - as it did last year - and the sectors that are more willing to invest are precisely those aimed at the domestic consumption that received incentives from the Government. They are also the same leading the resumption of the industrial production. The scenario results from the inquiries for new loans of the BNDES (National Development Bank), from the survey made by the FGV (Getúlio Vargas Foundation) that detected the willingness of entrepreneurs to invest and from the industrial research of the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), gathered by Folha.
In almost all the variables, the car industry stands out. Requests for new loans made to the State-Owned Bank have increase 44%. The production increased 103% since January 2009 (when the manufacturing sector began reacting to the crisis). 71% of the makers intends to invest more this year. Also included among the most optimistic with faster recovery are the segments of the chemical industry, electronic and communications material (especially stimulated by cell phones), and the mechanical and steel sectors - all with performance above the average of the industry.
The trend is positive and indicates that the economy may resume growing without restrictions and risk of a high of the prices because of the lesser offer, says the IBGE Economist André Macedo. The data of the inquiries to the BNDES signal the intention of the entrepreneurs to increase the installed capacity of their plants in the future - which only takes place when the economy sees good perspectives.
According to Fernando Puga, Economist of the BNDES, the entrepreneurs have somehow "overreacted to the crisis" and intensely and quickly cut the investment since the end of 2008. As of the second half of last year, he says, the stocks fell too much and they noticed the need to resume the investments. "These segments [connected to the domestic consumption] will benefit from the favorable exchange rate to import capital goods and will be able to increase the investments focusing on the domestic market", says Economist Sérgio Vale of MB Associados.