Anuário da Indústria de Implementos Rodoviários 2021

28 ENTREVISTA | INTERVIEW | ENTREVISTA How would you sum up, in one sentence, your three-year presidency of ANFIR as it comes to an end? It’s very difficult in one sentence, but I think it was very rich in experiences and challenges. How so? Being the president of ANFIR means representing Brazilian companies. Businesspeople in Brazil, to quote journalist Euclides da Cunha, are above all strong. In our industry, then, resilience goes hand-in-hand with courage, and representing this profile takes dedication. Teamwork is essential and the president does a good job if he has quality people around him, such as the vice presidents and the board that worked with me and with whom I am perfectly attuned. In addition, there is the ANFIR team, which is extremely professional and dedicated. I worked in teams throughout my career at Randon, where I had the privilege of working with extraordinary people on challenging and rewarding tasks. At ANFIR I never lacked challenges. Some came to me and others, I chose, always in the best interests of our sector. In both situations I was lucky to always be surrounded by very competent, dedicated professionals. In three years, a lot has been done, but none of it alone. Given your expectations for the sector throughout your management, is the current situation very different from such a troubled year as 2020? No doubt! The crisis in 2020 was not economic. Naturally, as was seen, the pandemic hit the economic recovery that began in the first quarter of last year. I remember well the optimism that built up month on month with improving results. I listened to my colleagues at ANFIR and member companies saying that everyone’s prospects for the year were good. Profit would return after three years of retraction. It was a blow, without a shadow of doubt. Although the pandemic has drastically slowed the economy, the road implement industry has reacted well. What factors do you especially attribute to 2020’s performance? Our industry was prepared for the crisis even without knowing it would come. The reason is simple: after three years of retraction, businesspeople in the sector, who are experienced executives and hardened by other challenges in the past, had done their homework. In other words, companies had slashed costs, making their operations more efficient with productivity gains. So, when the effects of the pandemic on the economy began to emerge, the sector did not suffer as much as it could have. Of course, no one can say they came through this crisis unscathed - that was impossible. But doing their homework, motivated by the three years of the previous crisis, made a difference for the road implement sector. Any other factors? In addition to this prior and unintentional preparation, because - after all - no one imagined the consequences of a pandemic for the economy, the good performance by agribusiness was a help. This activity is responsible for more than 40% of the heavy implement segment. Another segment of economic activity that had a great influence was construction, with the recovery of residential building and infrastructure, and the transportation of medicines and food, because they were not interrupted even by lockdowns and social distancing. The Brazilian economy practically ground to a halt in the second quarter of 2020. At that moment, what message did you send out to implement manufacturers and their employees? Well, it was a very tough time for all of us. The downturn in the first half of the year was 13%. But even then the agribusiness sector signaled that it could, as it turned out, be one of the drivers of recovery for the industry. There was another consideration that was not included in the statistics, but which was known to everyone – namely the pendulum swing in economic activity caused by production and supply. In summary, after a period of production cuts it I t is not just any sector that can face a three-year fall in business and then a pandemic that rocked the global economy in ways rarely seen for a century. Brazil’s road implement industry ended 2020 stable, which is a result few could have imagined in the middle of the year. In this interview, Norberto Fabris, who was president of ANFIR until April, when he was succeeded by José Carlos Spricigo , tells how the sector overcame the unprecedented difficulties imposed by the almost total shutdown of the economy over two months of his last year in office . “Solidarity and flexibility in the production chain were essential,” he says. A year of reaction and learning