Anuário da Indústria de Implementos Rodoviários 2018

31 obligations, it is natural to think that it also delivers quality. It is a seal that refers to good practices and creates equality between manufacturers, competition between equals. It is a pre-filter for customers. We also went to the financial market and ANFIR came to be considered by economists as an entity that should be listened to. It was assertive in the hardest years of the crisis. We also increased our work with federal, state and municipal governments. And we consolidated our office in Brasilia. We even had a look at the financial issue. We signed an agreement with Caixa Econômica Federal (a saving and loan bank) in 2015 to obtain a more affordable credit line and worked tirelessly to get the BNDES (Brazil’s state- owned development bank) more involved in financing, providing appropriate credit lines for the various sizes of company and reclassifying capital stock. We never supported, for example, the PSI with that subsidized rate. We thought it was a fairy tale. And it was! How has it harmed the sector? It distorted our production cycle and volumes. Especially in 2016 and 2017, the big problem for companies was the lack of working capital. It was no use financing 60% or 70%, because the rest was missing. There was credit, but no turnover to pay for it. That is why we asked the BNDES to again finance 100%, for SMEs especially. From 2016 to 2017 we were the first ones to ask for a fixed rate credit line. Because the second point of insecurity for medium and small borrowers is not knowing how much they have to pay per month. Has the industry shrunk in this six-year period? Today, ANFIR has more than 1,000 associated companies and affiliates. The two groups have shrunk. In the case of associates, by about 10%. Some no longer exist and others are in default and no longer in a position to be included. We have also seen a decline of affiliates in general. What has the sector learned from this record- breaking period followed by a sharp decline? I often say that the crisis was a divine lesson, the most expensive for companies, but which has an eternal legacy. It has made us better businesspeople than we were before the crisis. In the history of our segment there is no business group that has made a business plan to get into it .They are family businesses, people born in blacksmiths, who have started, all of them, from scratch, all with zero capital. They take on challenges day after day, they go through everything in terms of inflation, exchange rates... This was not a crisis that was so much bigger than others but importantly it came after very rapid growth. Between 2009 and 2012, implement makers saw that they had a chance to take advantage of. But they were all about emotion, with blood racing through their veins. They made a hundred products including trailers and semi- trailers and had to make two hundred because they had customers wanting to buy. Did they have any money? No. But credit was plentiful and they got carried away. But was it really a growth opportunity, wasn’t it? Just not sustainable. And most people were not prepared to see that. They were more like workers than businesspeople. And to not lose in this window, they went to the banks to sustain growth. Almost all of them went into debt to get working capital, for parts, for machinery, or to expand the factory. Then from 2015 to 2016 the business went from 100 kph to zero and they realized how fragile it was. The market stopped buying, it shrank by two-thirds and the banks stopped offering credit. From then on, the companies worked to stay alive, to make reductions that were possible and even impossible. And everything that had been done before, such as size of structure, investment, personnel, management, was revised to reach a size that the new order would sustain. This is the great three-year lesson that now forces us to look forward. But some manufacturers did not survive... Yes, that’s true. And others went back decades in terms of size and others, who had a little more organization, reviewed investments. Is the sector now, from a business point of view, better prepared than it was before the crisis? Any business owner in any segment, even the automakers with their boards, is certainly more cautious, more resilient and critical, not going overboard. We learned to look a little further ahead. The crisis affected everyone but in different ways with different consequences for some. Companies that had been in poor health were mortally wounded. Some died off, others continue to breathe. But there were companies that were better prepared, were more responsive, made a more intense adjustment and naturally fared better when the recovery began. It was not easy. I say we were playing soccer in Sao Paulo with the rarefied air of La Paz, because we only had 28% of production capacity being used. In the end it was natural selection which exposed the strengths and weaknesses of each company. Is this still the case? The sector is now working at about 50% to 60% of capacity in some areas. But you have to remember that many have been shut down. In any case, we’re getting a little more air in our lungs. But it’s not all right. The numbers are better, there are reasons for more optimism, but it is not something that is spreading, linear across the sector. Some segments, such as forestry, sugarcane, agribusiness, which are strong and demand a lot of volume, give the false impression that the corner has been turned. General cargo, trunk and sider vehicles are also doing well. A sign of a return to production has been