Anuario Brasileiro do Cobre | Brazilian Copper Yearbook 2017

2017 Anuário Brasileiro do Cobre Brazilian Copper Yearbook 12 Copper industry and current economic situation T he electrical conductors sector is essential for copper chain. It is responsible for 65% of copper consumption of Brazilian production (rods). Companies from this sector are partners of Sindicel - Union of the Electric Conductors Industries of São Paulo State. Currently, Carlos Alberto Cordeiro is in charge of Sindicel, who is in his second term. In addition, Caio is the chairperson of Cordeiro Group, a electric manufacturer, 100% Brazilian company, which acts especially in civil construction, power transmission, power utilities and infrastructure. Further, Brazil manage the business in Latin America and Africa. The Brazilian Copper Yearbook interviewed Caio about the current Brazilian economic situation and its repercussions in the industry: “As we know the recession of the Brazilian economy has reached record levels of unemployment in the last 3 years, accumulating, in the year 2016, a total of 14.2 million unemployed. This situation directly affected the copper industry,which suffered the consequences of the crisis and had lay off several workers. We were encouraged to look for alternatives to survive. One of them is directly linked within sustainability trends; it means the potential market to be invested in electric installations for solar photovoltaic and wind energy. ANEEL (Brazilian Electric Energy Agency) released recently data showing that between January 2012 and June 2017, it was registered 12,237 new distributed generation units in Brazil, adding 139.1 MW of installed capacity. 99% of the small-scale generators are solar photovoltaic, the rest being distributed in thermoelectric, wind and hydroelectric generating plants. New opportunities for business, employment and income should be multiplied in the various segments that integrate the photovoltaic production chain; solar panels, inverters and other components of the solar generation, such as support structures of photovoltaic panels, cables and two-way electric charge meters. The gradual reduction of the costs of distributed photovoltaic generation must be increased the demand, and several financial institutions, public and private, seek to offer lines of credit increasingly attractive to the interested parties. On the other hand, export to foreign market became an alternative solution to survive during the economy internal crisis. Even falling almost 42% in the trade balance, exports maintained the level of US $ 316 million. When we compare the retraction of 13% comparison with 2014, we realize that the index still low if we compare with the imports that were 31% smaller in this period, reflecting the low consumption of copper in the country. “ Cordeiro points out that the strong devaluation of metal prices in the LME (London Metal Exchange), which fell by 29% from US$ 6,862/tonne in 2014 to US$ 4,863/tonne in 2016, should be considered. “says Cordeiro. However, in spite of these oscillations have affected the companies, the president of the CONJUNTURA BUSINESS New opportunities for business, employment and income should be multiplied in the various segments that integrate the production chain