|
 In the first three months this year, revenues posted by companies based in the Manaus Industrial Hub (northern Brazil) grew 25.55%, having risen from US$ 5.421 billion in 2007 to US$ 6.806 billion this year.
According to the general manager for Economic and Entrepreneurial Studies at the Superintendence of the Manaus Free Zone (Suframa), José Alberto da Costa Machado, the increase is a consequence of domestic market expansion, of the Brazilian population recovering their purchasing power and of a period of technological transition, in which traditional television sets are being replaced by LCD and plasma devices.
"The costs of the more modern LCD and plasma TV sets are higher, but that does not prevent them from being replaced. Although the replacement is not happening at a fast pace, it does represent a lot in sales growth," stated Machado.
A report by Suframa on first-quarter performance of companies shows that the production rate of LCD- and plasma-screen television sets continues to increase. From January to March this year, 343.20% more units were manufactured than in the same period last year.
In the first quarter last year, production totaled 87,980 devices, whereas this year 389,924 units were manufactured with LCD screens. Production of plasma TVs leaped from 38,550 to 56,211 units.
The electric and electronic devices sector recorded the highest expansion in production, totaling US$ 2.761 billion in the first three months this year, as against US$ 2.347 billion in the first quarter of 2007. Next comes the motorcycle sector - with revenues of US$ 2.003 billion and growth of 50.04% - and metallurgy, which posted revenues of US$ 463.420 million and grew 36.55%.
Other sectors that stood out were watch manufacturing - with revenues of US$ 55.788 million and growth of 34.66%; mechanical industry - with US$ 179.140 million and growth of 22.31%; and eyeglass manufacturing - with US$ 27.089 million and expansion of 22.79%.
According to the Suframa, production also grew for items such as compact discs (growth of 53.67%); portable radios, audio players and audio recorder devices (growth of 25.53%); automobile radio and audio player devices (growth of 52.16%) and microcomputers - including portable models (growth of 22.57%).
The companies in the Manaus Industrial Hub (PIM) also increased their exports. In comparison with the first three months of 2007, there was an expansion of 16.94% in foreign sales, which totaled US$ 233.319 million.
"The good export performance of the PIM [Manaus Industrial Hub] happened due to many different variables, but it is important to highlight foreign sales of cellular telephones, which resumed their growth, and the strengthening of the hub's trade partnership with neighboring countries," explained Machado.
ABr
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.