12/19/2008 15h41
Pasta industry foresees increase in sales and makes investments
Gazeta Mercantil - 12/19/2008
For the pasta manufacturers, the international crisis was not the main problem of the year. The skyrocketing in the price of wheat in the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 made it difficult for the performance of the companies, which had to pass on the costs during the first half of 2008. In view of this setting, while the volume of sold pasta grew 5% in the year, to 1,333 million tons, the sales of the sector leaped 8%, to R$ 4.85 billion (US$ 2.12 billion). For the next year, the expectation is more conservative. According to Cláudio Zanão, president of the Brazilian Association of the Industries of Pasta (Abima), the sector should follow the growth of the GDP. The estimate of the association is of an increase of nearly 3%. Should the forecasts be confirmed, the income should reach R$ 4.99 billion (US$ 2.13 billion) in 2009. "We had a difficult first half, but we were able to recover in the second half", said Claudio Zanão. According to him, the sales of pasta - a low-value product which is part of the Brazilian basic food basket - were not affected by the international crisis. In the companies, the increase of the prices practiced all over the year also had an impact in the results. In M. Dias Branco - the biggest Brazilian producer with 19.3% of the market share according to the September and October data of ACNielsen -, the income from the sale of pasta amounted to R$ 472.2 million (US$ 205.3 million) from January to September, an increase of 37.8% in relation to the same period of 2007. Nevertheless, in volume, the increase reached 17.7%, to 169 thousand tons.
