27 There are no reasons on the horizon for fireworks or champagne, nor for any more pessimism than has already struck the transport sector account in the last three years. Brazil, in the views of executives and leaders of the main entities in the sector, will have a much less complicated year in 2017 than previous years, but still without more vigorous recovery that could assuage the losses caused by successive slides in the domestic market in this period. There are more than a few questions that still haunt businesses’ accounts. The political-economic scenario is still the biggest hindrance to plans and a belief in a slight improvement in business in the second half of 2017, and a more noticeable improvement only from early 2018. A domestic recovery will be a gradual process and a return to pre-crisis levels is still unlikely. Alcides Braga, president of the National Association of Road Equipment Manufacturers (ANFIR), believes that truck implement and accessory market will have a difficult year, but it will not be as bad in the last two years. “Every economic recovery is slow and the sector’s performance since 2015 is a clear reminded of the harsh reality we are faced by,” says Braga, recalling that in 2015 the new vehicle registrations fell by 44.76% on 2014, when 159,870 products were sold followed by only 61,996 units in 2016, a further collapse of 29.8%. The highway equipment industry has thus seen its sales shrink more than two-thirds since 2014. One of the terrible effects of this scenario has been a drastic increase in unemployment. “We have lost 30% of our greatest asset, which is skilled workers,” says Braga. The decline has been widespread across all businesses. Of the fifteen segments analyzed by ANFIR for trailers and semitrailers and the seven surveyed for bodies on chassis, only sales of sugarcane trucks, among heavy vehicles, grew at the end of the year, up by 31.58%. The worsening political and economic crisis, with the consequent fall in consumer confidence, rising unemployment rate, slowing economic activity and, finally, a further decline in GDP, of 3.6% in 2016, nullified any good signs that could be gleaned by any other sector, such as agribusiness. Braga recalls that not even important mechanisms such as the credit line from Brazil’s state-owned development bank, BNDES, for sectors producing capital goods has helped. Last year such credit operations represented an annual borrowing cost of up to 18%. The equation stipulated two interest rates in the same financing. The first was on 50% and 60% of the finance, respectively, for large enterprises and for small and medium enterprises. The second was applied to a 90% ceiling, but based on various indices. Key industry leaders believe that 2017 will be a year of slight growth in business and will a starting point for gradual recovery in the transport industry Small steps forwards © Skypixel | Dreamstime.com®
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