GM announces investment of R $1.4 billion in Gravataí factory

SÃO PAULO-GM announced this Thursday, 3, R $1.4 billion investment in the company''s factory in Gravatai, Rio Grande do Sul. The contribution is not intended to expand the production capacity of the unit, once the operation also has a high level of idleness. The idea is to invest in new production technologies for cars that will be launched from 2020.
The amount announced is part of the automaker''s investment plan started in 2014 and it will until 2019, for a total value of RS $13 billion. The company denies that the contribution has been motivated by the approval of the labor reform, as suggested the Ministry of labor, in a statement sent to journalists.
The note from the Government maintains that the American carmaker''s announcement is one of the first results of the reform, because of prospects that investment brings employment generation and economic growth. The company, although it is in favour of the reform, strengthen the contribution is part of a project that has been discussed for several months, and that is not conditioning the new labor legislation.
GM claims that the investment will result in new jobs for the factory of Gravataí, but does not yet have an estimate of how many jobs will be created, which will depend on the developments in the market of vehicles in Brazil, who is recovering slowly from sudden drops in sales in 2015 and 2016.
The company does not reveal how many employees do you have in your unit in Rio Grande do Sul, but says that, in the sum of all the factories that have in the country, there are approximately 16000 workers. The Gravatai factory has capacity enough to produce 335,000 vehicles a year.