Grows the deficit of automakers

The crisis in Argentina is the largest, but not the only problem faced by automakers and autoparts makers Brazilians in business transactions with the outside world. The barriers in the neighboring country in addition to the drop in sales to other consumer markets of Brazilian cars-the case of Mexico and South Africa-space loss to Asian competition, and even paralysis of the Venezuelan automobile industry.
The result of this are growing deficits in the balance of trade of the two sectors. In the first four months of the year, vehicle imports exceeded exports by $ 1.68 billion, which magnifies the negative balance of a year ago at 21.3%. The trade deficit of autoparts, which had already been record in 2013, follows advancing and reached $ 3.65 billion between January and April-high of 9.3% in a year, according to data from the Board of foreign trade (Secex), the Ministry of development (see chart).
When it includes the account numbers of manufacturers of chassis, BodyWorks and trailers, along with agricultural and road machines-sectors that soften the damage because they are surplus, the automotive trade balance deficit falls to $ 4.57 billion, still 7.9% higher than the result for the first quarter of 2013.
In the last two years, policies of restriction to imported cars managed to bring down imports of vehicles in Brazil, but in the opposite direction of trade flows, the automakers ' exports have not given the recovery sequence started in 2013. Beyond the fall of 26.2 percent in sales for the Argentina-target of four to five cars shipped in Brazil-exports to the Mexican market, where consumption of vehicles stalled, are today only a third of what they were a year ago.
Registered numbers until April show little more than 6 thousand vehicles bound for Mexico, 66.3% below the 18.6 thousand units in the first four months of 2013. As well as Argentina, Mexico has a trade agreement with Brazil and absorbed 8% of exports of automakers here last year. Already in South Africa, target of 3% of exports, consumption of Brazilian vehicles fell almost 8 percent this year, reflecting the sharp fall of the local market. This year, the South Africans reduce the consumption of automobiles at 23.6%.
In the auto parts industry, external sales retreat not only in countries in recession but also recovering markets in Europe and the United States. In the ranking of the top five industry targets-Argentina, United States, Mexico, Germany and the Netherlands, all reduce purchases of parts produced in Brazil.
To make matters worse, exports to Venezuela, which until two years ago was the fifth main destination for Brazilian autoparts are in freefall after the automakers in the country have stopped or reduced the pace of production due to lack of foreign currency to import raw materials. Just in the first four months of the year, there was an indentation of 59.3% in shipments of automotive components of Brazil for the Venezuelan market.
Even with the devaluation of the Brazilian real in the last twelve months-which, in theory, would give the industry greater firepower to fight international competition, companies are complaining of lack of competitiveness to dispute even neighboring markets in South America with Asian countries that rely on export subsidies. This competition, they say, became even more lopsided when the Brazilian Government ended, at the turn of the year, the repossession scheme taxes to exporters, known as Reintegrates.
"Companies that were competitive until two years ago are no longer," says Paulo Butori, President of that Union, Sindipeças defends the interests of the national industry of automotive components.
The trade balance figures this year show that imported parts from South Korea and China, with high of 4.5% and 7.1%, respectively, are still gaining space in the Brazilian market, as a result not only of the competitive prices, but also the largest production of Asian automakers, like Hyundai, Korean in the country. At the same time, progress in the technological standards of the cars assembled in Brazil has led automakers to strengthen overseas purchases of components not available locally, especially electronics.
In the absence of a system to track what they buy, automakers Butori says the national auto industry still benefits from the new automotive system, which connects discounts in the tax on industrialized products (IPI) for the use of local parts in cars produced in the country.