Industry should beat investments
TodoDia
Even with the increase of the Selic rate (basic rate of interest) to 11.25% a year, 70.5% of the industries members of the Ciesp-Campinas (Center of Industries of the State of São Paulo in Campinas) said in January they will keep or increase the investments planned for this year. They projected, at year-end, to invest R$ 125 million (US$ 73 million) in 2011 - value 31.6% greater than that of 2010. The data are of monthly industrial survey of the entity, prepared by the Facamp (Colleges of Campinas) and released yesterday. The survey, conducted in the first half of January 2011, was attended by 49 large companies of 550 entity members. Last month, nearly 57% of those polled operated with an installed productive capacity exceeding 70%. The indicator is 1.8 percent above that registered in the same period in 2010. The index for January is significant because in early 2010 the exemption of the IPI (Excise Tax) was still in force.
The growth of the regional industry in January features a dichotomy. On one hand, the balance of employment (hires minus layoffs) was of 2,050 jobs. "It was the best January in the last six years, injecting nearly R$ 3 million (US$ 1.8 million) more in the regional economy , but there are still nearly 2 thousand jobs lost during the global economic crisis to be restored", said the regional director Natal Martins. On the other, there wasn't a significant increase in the use of the installed capacity because of the high in the imports, mainly of industrial inputs (85.7%), due to the unfavorable exchange rate.
The Economist Rodrigo Sabbatini, Coordinator of the Center of Economic Research of the Facamp, said many companies stopped buying raw materials, components and parts from the domestic industry to import them. What was worrisome was the buying abroad of industrialized products (9.5% of all importers). "The growth of that kind of import may lead to a process of regional deindustrialization".
A recent obstacle to the regional industrial growth arouse last week, with Argentines increasing from 400 to 600 the number of products subject to non-automatic import licensing - a bureaucratic mechanism that works to control the entry of products in the country. Meanwhile, according to Anselmo Riso, Director of the Department of Foreign Trade of the Ciesp-Campinas, it is not possible to measure the impacts of Argentine measure that should affect the automotive, textile and electronics industries.