Latin America is in the spotlight today as the World Economic Forum’s regional summit kicks off — and so, too, is GE’s presence in Brazil, which is marking its 90-year anniversary. With the country accounting for 40 percent of GE’s South American revenue — $7.5 billion in 2009 — we briefly talked to GE Brazil President and CEO Joao Geraldo Ferreira about the 90-year milestone and what the country means to GE and the region. “Brazil definitely has the momentum right now,” Ferreira said. “Brazil was the last one to get into the economic crisis, and the first one to get out of the crisis. The economy was supposed to grow by ½ percent GDP in 2009. This year they’re projecting 5.2 percent, and maybe more GDP growth.”
High flying: Ninety years ago, GE established a product distribution center in Brazil, which at the time had almost no modern factories. Donkeys transported the new products. Nowadays, it’s high-tech, such as the jet engines that are serviced in GE Celma’s aviation plant in Petrópolis, Brazil — a small town near Rio de Janeiro — seen above.
Happy Birthday: GE is responsible for many of Brazil’s “firsts” — from refrigerators in 1952 to its first digital mammography and cardiac disease scanners in 2003. GE’s locomotive plant is above.
Ferreira noted that because Brazil’s exports account for a relatively modest 14 percent of GDP – compared to China’s 40 percent — the country only needs to absorb a much smaller share of the surplus goods it produces during years of economic downturn.
“In a frozen global market, that’s significant,” he said. “Brazil may not be growing like India or China with 9, 10, 11 percent GDP growth every year, but we have very diversified growth. And that is critically important.”
In addition to aviation and locomotives, there are immense opportunities for GE in water, healthcare and wind energy, Ferreira said. For example, the Brazilian government recently held its first “wind auction,” and Ferreira said GE captured close to 30 percent of the market.
“When you think about diversifying the energy matrix in Brazil, and then when you think of the products that GE has, it makes a lot of sense for us to be offering those solutions,” he said.
Local heroes: Zaqueu Sérvulo de Alcantara, a 20-year veteran of GE Transportation in Contagem, told us. “In May 2008 I received a crystal-made miniature locomotive directly from the hands of the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. At that time, I told him ‘Your Excellency, you remember when you said that you would not buy new locomotives, because they were too expensive to import? No need to worry, because GE makes them here in Brazil now!’”
The subject of how Latin America can achieve a sustainable recovery following the economic crisis is precisely what the 400 business, government and thought leaders assembled at the 3-day WEF summit in Cartagena, Colombia are tackling this week. Ferdinando “Nani” Beccalli-Falco, President & CEO of GE International, will be on tomorrow’s panel — which will be webcast live — that is addressing the short-term reforms and policies needed in the region to promote a strong economic recovery. Rogerio Patrus, GE’s CEO for Latin America, will be moderating a closed session on Development of Infrastructure across Latin America at the summit.
* Watch the live webcast at 3:15 p.m. ET (2:15 p.m. Colombia) on April 7
It’s a gas: GE began its oil and gas operations in Brazil in 1989. Just last year the company won a $250 million contract to supply Petrobras of Brazil with 250 of GE’s advanced VectroGray subsea wellheads for deep-sea drilling. The VectroGray wellheads are manufactured in the GE Oil & Gas Jandira plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil. “Overall, oil and gas is one of the major opportunities we have in Brazil,” Ferreira said.
Learn more about GE in Brazil in these GE Reports stories:
* “Brazil’s turbines sweetly hum with sugar-based ethanol”
* “The sugar-land express: Brazil orders 50 locomotives”
* “Brazil’s new Azul airline inks $1B services deal with GE”
* “GE wins $250 million offshore drilling contract in Brazil”
* “Brazil boosts clean gas in the Amazon; wind in the East”
* Learn more about GE’s citizenship efforts at our aviation facility in Brazil
