Good morning all You readers of my posts. For today I have decided to share some information with You, which describes the quite dramatic recent health and economic development in our country Brazil and in general in our greater region Latin America, which concerns all of us deeply.
As per the revelations of independent research institutes, the Brazilian GDP per capita will be 6.7% lower at the end of this year than at the end of 2019, which represents the strongest reduction since 1940, when this measurement was introduced for the first time. And with 32.200 Reais/capita it will be the same value as at the end of 2008 !
For the period 2011 – 2020 the reduction of the Brazilian GDP/capita is beeing forecasted to become 8.2%, which leads to the frustrating conclusion that “the country has entered a roller coaster” and that “what was gained during the former period 2001 – 2015 has been lost again”. Just one more of the so many already “lost decades” for Brazil and the Brazilians.
Almost four million Brazilian famillies will find themselfes retroceded during 2020 in the social pyramid – which in Brazil consists of the five classes A, B, C, D and E – means they will be mainly moved back from class B to class C and from class C to class D. Thus great part of the “new Brazilian middle class” will disappear soon again. Imagine what this concretely means for so many people and for the whole economy.
Figures about the distribution of the Brazilian population over the social pyramid from 2019 were:
Classe A+B (“Rich and upper middle class”; average familly income above 8.159 Reais/month): 15% of the population or 30 million people
Class C (“New middle class”; average familly income between 1.892 Reais/month and 8.159 Reais/month): 55% of the population or 115 million people
Class D+E (“Lower classes”; average familly income below 1.892 Reais/month): 30% of the population or 63 million people
Another shocking situation is, that Latin America together with the Caribbean – after Europe – has become the 2nd most affected region by Covid-19 with since it`s outbreak 200.000 dead and almost 5 million infected people. And three fourth of these just in the two giant countries and major economies Mexico and Brazil.
But we cannot simply ignore all these negative things and much less throw our towels away. In the contrary. With this dramatic situation and development clearly stating, we must increase our efforts – within all our means and areas of responsability – and look for counter measures, for improvements and solutions for all these problems.
This was exactly the common understanding of all participants during the “Virtual Members Meeting” of ABIMAQ, the Brazilian Machinery Builders Association (http://www.abimaq.org.br/site.aspx/abimaq-en), to which our company Vulkan do Brasil (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/holding/vulkan-companies/brazil) – the same as more than 1500 other brazilian machinery and equipment manufacturing companies – is associated since many years and in which I participated yesterday together with my management team colleagues Elisangela Santos (elisangela.santos@vulkan.com), Marketing Director and Sales Director of our marine division Vulkan Couplings (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/couplings) and Tiago Bedani (tiago.bedani@vulkan.com), Sales Director of our industrial division Vulkan Drive Tech (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/drivetech).
Actually our company Vulkan do Brasil so far participates actively in the “Sectorial Chambers” CSCM (Cement and Mining), CSTM (Mechanical Power transmission), CSENO (Naval, Offshore and Onshore) and CSDS (Defense, Armed Forces).
We are very proud, that our management team member Elisangela Santas has just a few weeks ago been elected as one of the Vice Presidents for the CSENO, where she already has been participating very actively and representing our marine division Vulkan Couplings since a couple of years.
As the Executive President of ABIMAQ José Velloso explained yesterday during our members meeting, several associated companies since the very beginning of the Covid-19 crisis in Brazil have successfully started to built respirator equipments for the hospitals, to manufacture desinfection cabins, purification systems, protection masks and many other important items. And almost all associated companies have immediately implemented all kinds of protection measures in their facilities in order to combat the spread of the desease.
In our case we have been very stringent at our factory in Itatiba with a very sophisticated and extensive protection program and thank God we have not suffered any constraints for our operations and business processes since this crisis has started here in Brazil about 5 months ago.
We watch the development of the general situation very closely and carefully and we do all necessary adjustments immediately. The protection of our employees, customers and business are top priorities for us. Because this country and it`s economy must continue! Too many people – in our case alone more than 200 famillies and lots of further people – depend on our continuity and success.
With all the endless challenges and setbacks during the last years, many of the Brazilian manufacturers of machinery and equipments have learned their lessons. As we got know during yesterday`s ABIMAQ event, the number of associated companies, which are exporting their products to foreign countries, has increased from 15% only during 2010 to meanwhile more than 50% today. Imagine the efficiency and competitivity increase which this signifies.
This reflects our own strategy during the last 5 years where we started successfully the commercialisation of our products (all types of couplings, brakes, backstops, mounts and many others for all kinds of typical mechanical power transmission applications like in the mining, steel, ciment, sugar, paper, oil & gas and many more industries) all over Latin America, including the opening of our sales & engineering offices in Mexico and Colombia, and our global sales expansion in close cooperation with our colleagues of the Vulkan Group`s worldwide subsidiaries and factories on practically all continents.
As the English say – “diamonds are made unde pressure”, which refers to the formation process of diamonds inside the earth, which are – the same as coal – made out of carbon, but under much higher pressure and temperatures.
Our company has just completed 45 proud years of history in Brazil and we have successfully overcome during all these years all the constant challenges, with which this as beautiful as suffering country has almost always been confronted. This makes us totally convinced, that we will also overcome successfully – together with our employees, customers, suppliers, service providers, neighbors, friends and fellow citizens – the current challenges incl. the terrible Covid-19 crisis.
I wish You a great and successful day and hope to see You again here in my blog for my tomorrow`s post.
