12/16/2008 11h08
Training and design to receive US$ 609 thousand
DCI - 12/16/2008
Furniture manufacturers of the 39 municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, including those near São Bernardo, in the so-called São Paulo ABC region, renewed an agreement to provide continuity to the local productive arrangement system (APL), started in the sector four years ago. By the terms of the agreement, 57 companies will invest R$ 1.4 million (US$ 609 thousand) in training, market actions, innovation and technology in one new stage of the system of association, through the APL system. According to Sebrae, part of the funds (48.61%) will go to the sector by this entity and the other 51.19% will divided between the Unions of the Furniture Industry of São Paulo and the Furniture Industry of São Bernardo do Campo and Region. According to Sebrae, until 2010, the system will gather 70 companies. The APL is characterized by the union, in cooperatives, of the companies that are located in the same geographic space and work in the same productive segment. According to the press office of the APL system if the furniture industry of São Paulo, the sector has had the chance to acquired new technologies with the exchange of experiences with the Italian Furniture Technological Center (Cosmob). Brazilian businessmen went to Italy, in November, to see how the Cosmob, a world reference in the segment, works and can contribute, mainly, for the improvement of the design of the São Paulo companies. Two years after the beginning of the APL system, in 2006, the participating companies had sales of R$ 165 million (US$ 71.7 million), an amount that increased 24.3% compared with that obtained in the previous year. The sector generates nearly 15 thousand jobs.
