Renault to invest US$ 581.4 million in the Country in three years
O Estado de S. Paulo
In the next three years, Renault do Brasil will invest R$ 1 billion (US$ 581.4 million), an amount that will be invested, mainly, in the renewal of the car line. The French maker, sixth in the national ranking of domestic sales, is the third maker to announce investments in the Country over the last 20 days. Volkswagen has announced a R$ 6.2 billion (US$ 3.6 billion) program for the 2010-2014 period, and Ford, R$ 4 billion (US$ 2.3 billion) for the period between 2011 and 2015, thus giving rise to a new cycle of investments in Brazil, whose internal market is one of the few to register growth in sales, along with China and Germany.
Renault's program repeats the amount invested in the previous period, from 2006 to 2009, which brought the country the production of the Logan and Sandero models, currently the two most sold models of the brand. More than half of the investments will come from loans of local financial institutions, such as the BNDES.
The new plan includes the local production of at least two new models, one of them the SUV Duster, with production starting 2011, as announced by the group headquarters on Tuesday. The other one should be a small-sized pickup of the Logan family that is being developed in the design center of the company in São Paulo. "We want to get into segments we are not present yet", says the President of Renault do Brasil, Jean-Michel Jalinier, who is also the managing officer of the company for the Mercosur.
Unlike the other investments that have been recently announced, including General Motors' R$ 2 billion (US$ 1.2 billion), formalized in July, Renault's plan does not include the increase of the productive capacity. The plant opened in São José dos Pinhais (PR) ten years ago has annual capacity for 250 thousand vehicles, but it will produce 123 thousand this year, nearly 30 thousand of which for exportation. The assembly line of the company's partner, Nissan, also works in the unit. For Jalinier, who took over the office of the President of the Brazilian subsidiary in March, the group intends to start a phase of continuous growth from now on.