Brazilian Association of Textile and Confection Industry (Abit) says the strategy is to strengthen trade with Latin and Central American countries and expand sales to Mexico, the United States and Europe, as well as other non-traditional markets
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The textile and confection industry, which invoices US$50 billion a year, invests in exports to circumvent the current economic crisis and reverse a falling scenario in production and drop-offs that have been dragging since 2014. After the tombo of overseas sales due to the crisis in Argentina, the Brazilian Association of Textile and Confection Industry (Abit) states that the strategy is to strengthen trade with Latin and Central American countries and expand sales to Mexico, the United States and Europe, as well as other non-traditional markets. "What we want is to resume the market share of 1% of the global industry trade in the next ten years," said Abit President Rafael Cervone.
The goal is bold, since, despite having reached this level in world sales for 20 years, the current participation of the Brazilian textile industry is practically in half, at 0.47%, according to Abit. In addition to this scenario, the expectations of the 10% drop association in textile manufacturing, 12% in clothing production and 4% in clothing sales in 2015. "In addition to the high stocks, what happens is that the purchasing power of the Brazilian has fallen. The population has begun to save," said Cervone. It also cites, as a complicator for the segment, the dispute by customers with electroelectronic products. "Over 15 years ago, our industry had no such strong competition with mobile, iPad and video game," he said.
The president of Abit evaluates that recovery will not yet come in 2015, but if measures are taken to conquer new markets, the sector can win breath from the middle of the coming year. Cervone cites a survey of the association that shows that currently 85% of industry entrepreneurs consider exporting their products on the horizon of the next 5 years. In November 2014, the percentage was at 50%. "We have already calculated 776 actions from December 2014 to November 2016, dealing with training of companies, competitive intelligence, commercial promotion and participation in fairs and events abroad," highlighted.
The actions are partnerships developed together with the Brazilian Agency for the Promotion of Exports and Investments (Apex-Brasil) and the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC) and include the coming of foreign entrepreneurs and journalists for events in Brazil. "Now the government is much more offensive in free trade agreements," the executive evaluated. "These agreements with Mexico, the United States and Europe can quickly enhance trade flows and have very rapid results," he noted. He cites the intention of reaching unconventional markets such as the Middle East to Australia and Asia.
The recent valuation of the dollar before the real is one of the factors that should drive the turnover of trade with other countries. "At today's level, the exchange already guarantees us an improvement in competitiveness that justifies being more optimistic about the future of exports and the slowdown in the rate of growth of imports." For Cervone, if the government's new stance provokes short-term results, the result can be "very significant".
One of the positive consequences of this process is the gain of competitiveness imposed by the need to increase productivity to sell abroad. The President of Abit explains that the exporting companies need to be more competitive and therefore improve comparatively in the internal market. "This favors the nationalization of the production of products being imported." According to him, there is currently room to replace about R$ 2 billion annually, of the total R$ 7 billion in imported textiles.
Source: www.em. with.br