{"id":517862,"date":"2010-04-06T12:09:06","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T16:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gereports.com\/?p=5591"},"modified":"2010-04-06T12:09:06","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T16:09:06","slug":"taking-a-look-at-ge-in-brazil-during-wef-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/517862","title":{"rendered":"Taking a look at GE in Brazil during WEF Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span>Latin America is in the spotlight today as the World Economic Forum\u2019s regional summit<\/a> kicks off — and so, too, is GE\u2019s presence in Brazil, which is marking its 90-year anniversary. With the country accounting for 40 percent of GE\u2019s 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. \u201cBrazil definitely has the momentum right now,\u201d Ferreira said. \u201cBrazil 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 \u00bd percent GDP in 2009. This year they\u2019re projecting 5.2 percent, and maybe more GDP growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nHigh flying:<\/span> 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\u2019s high-tech, such as the jet engines that are serviced in GE Celma\u2019s aviation plant in Petr\u00f3polis, Brazil \u2014 a small town near Rio de Janeiro — seen above.<\/div>\n
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\nHappy Birthday:<\/span> GE is responsible for many of Brazil\u2019s \u201cfirsts\u201d — from refrigerators in 1952 to its first digital mammography and cardiac disease scanners in 2003. GE’s locomotive plant is above.<\/div>\n

 
\nFerreira noted that because Brazil\u2019s exports account for a relatively modest 14 percent of GDP \u2013 compared to China\u2019s 40 percent — the country only needs to absorb a much smaller share of the surplus goods it produces during years of economic downturn.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a frozen global market, that\u2019s significant,\u201d he said. \u201cBrazil 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201cwind auction,\u201d and Ferreira said GE captured close to 30 percent of the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\nLocal heroes:<\/span> Zaqueu S\u00e9rvulo de Alcantara, a 20-year veteran of GE Transportation in Contagem, told us. \u201cIn May 2008 I received a crystal-made miniature locomotive directly from the hands of the President of Brazil, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva. At that time, I told him \u2018Your 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!\u2019\u201d<\/div>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019s CEO for Latin America, will be moderating a closed session on Development of Infrastructure across Latin America at the summit.<\/p>\n

* Watch the live webcast at 3:15 p.m. ET (2:15 p.m. Colombia) on April 7<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nIt\u2019s a gas:<\/span> 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\u2019s advanced VectroGray subsea wellheads for deep-sea drilling. The VectroGray wellheads are manufactured in the GE Oil & Gas Jandira plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil. \u201cOverall, oil and gas is one of the major opportunities we have in Brazil,\u201d Ferreira said.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Learn more about GE in Brazil in these GE Reports stories:
\n* \u201cBrazil\u2019s turbines sweetly hum with sugar-based ethanol<\/a>\u201d
\n* \u201cThe sugar-land express: Brazil orders 50 locomotives<\/a>\u201d
\n* \u201cBrazil\u2019s new Azul airline inks $1B services deal with GE<\/a>\u201d
\n* \u201cGE wins $250 million offshore drilling contract in Brazil<\/a>\u201d
\n* \u201cBrazil boosts clean gas in the Amazon; wind in the East<\/a>\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

* Learn more about GE’s citizenship efforts at our aviation facility in Brazil<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Latin America is in the spotlight today as the World Economic Forum\u2019s regional summit kicks off — and so, too, is GE\u2019s presence in Brazil, which is marking its 90-year anniversary. With the country accounting for 40 percent of GE\u2019s South American revenue — $7.5 billion in 2009 — we briefly talked to GE Brazil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4069,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}