Peugeot Citroën may terminate 2014 with drop of up to 46% in the production

RIO-PSA Peugeot Citroën should produce between 100 and 150 thousand vehicles in Brazil in 2014, number under 185 thousand cars produced in 2013. The negative variation, therefore, may be as high as 46%.
The PSA has already registered fall in car sales in 10% in the first half compared to the same period last year. According to company executives, the anticipation for this second half is better, but the company acknowledges that annual production had fallen short of the mark of 2013.
According to the Director of Corporate Affairs of the PSA, Rodrigo Junqueira, Brazil sales were hobbled by an atypical year, marked by the late Carnival, Copa and elections that will take place in October.
Junqueira, however, is optimistic about the scenario for 2015, after the election: "in the years previous, see [electoral] concern about the change for the worse in the economy and this time there is more optimism that the economy may improve after the elections," said the Executive.
The instability of the Argentinean market, where PSA sold 40 percent of its Brazilian production last year, will also influence the reduction of activity in Puerto Real plant in Rio.
In the first half PSA sold to the neighbouring country about 15 thousand cars and 13 thousand engines. The tag is similar to the company's volume of exports to Argentina in 2012, but far below the 26 thousand cars exported in 2013.
For the company, the market of the neighbouring country's prospects even worse that the Brazilian.
"He [the Argentine market] already fell between 20% and 25%, and the prospects are not good because there are difficulties to predict what will happen on account of exchange rate problems," said the Chief Financial Officer of PSA, Jean-Marc Lucent. "The Argentine problems are deeper than Brazilians," he said. According to him, the difficulties in the commercial relations between Brazil and Argentina also influenced the weakening sales.
In 2013, the Peugeot for MERCOSUR exported about $ 185 million, a mark that will not be repeated this year, recognize executives.
During lecture at Federação das Indústrias do Rio de Janeiro (Firjan) about the future prospects of MERCOSUR, Lucent took the opportunity to criticize the lack of unity on the block. "For us, for us Europeans, industrial understand where you're going the Mercosur", criticized the Financial Director of the PSA. "We need a strong integration with Argentina and of free trade to allow an economy of scale," he complained.