The worldsteel-47 Congress took place in Sao Paulo, Brazil on the 6th and 8t of October wherein Benjamin Baptista Filho (President of Alacero), André Gerdao Johannpeter (Vice President) and Daniel Novegil (Director) participated in a panel that focused on Latin America.
Baptista opened the presentations expressing concern for the strong dependence of the Latin American economy on raw materials exports. He stated “This could mean the end of the golden years for Latin America. Hence, industrial sector development is the way to stop the regional dependency on raw materials.” He evaluated that in a context of global overcapacity, regional capacity is under control and has even stagnated since 2010 because of an increase of imports.
In turn, Novegil focused on the deindustrialization process that marked the last decade in Latin America and on its consequences on regional economies. During his presentation, he emphasized the role of investments as the engine that triggers infrastructure improvement and the formation of an industrial base, which in turn make prosperity and social development possible.
Gerdau specifically referred to the challenges of Brazil, host country of the meeting and the largest steel producer of Latin America. Among these challenges, he highlighted tax burden. “If we consider rolled steel production costs before taxes in Brazil, this country is more competitive than Russia, Germany, USA, Turkey and even China. However, when international market taxes are taken into account, Brazilian costs grows 54% and Brazilian competitiveness falls behind all the other countries,” the executive explained.
