Brazil looks beyond its domestic market to build national plastics industry

São Paulo—Blessed with tremendous growth potential in its own backyard, Brazil's plastics converting industry isn't content to simply grow through the increasing demand of its own burgeoning domestic market, as leading producers teamed last week with the Brazilian government to promote their output beyond Brazil's shores and into the export market.

As part of the 26^th International Fair of Packaging and Processing for the Food and Beverage Industry (FISPAL; São Paulo, Brazil; June 8-11), the Brazilian Plastics Institute (INP) and the government's Export Plastic Program brought in a delegation of plastic packaging buyers from throughout Latin America, arranging business meetings during FISPAL between those buyers and Brazilian plastic packaging converters that are members of the program. Marco Wydra, executive manager of the Export Plastics program, anticipated that during the three-day buyer event collocated with FISPAL at the at the Anhembi Convention Center, the 20-plus Export Plastic program member companies that participated were expected to sign deals to export approximately $80,000 worth of plastic packaging during the event. Buyers came to the event from Colombia, Peru, England, and Chile, interested in a range of plastic packaging. Wydra told PlasticsToday that it's difficult to accurately gauge how much export business the event will generate for member companies that participate, with many deals discussed during the show not completely consummated until a later time.

In 2009, the FISPAL buyer project included 116 meetings between 35 member companies and 15 importers from Argentina, Chile, Spain, and Mozambique, with some $50,000 in deals signed at the show and an additional $4.6 million expected to have closed in the following 12 months. Export Plastic reports that through the first three months of 2010, its member companies saw the value of their flexible packaging exports climb by 8.6%, from $45 million over the same time period in 2009, to $52 million to start this year. Initiated in 2004, the Export Plastics Program current has 83 plastic converting member companies spread among 10 Brazilian states.

In a presentation that preceded the event, Gilberto Agrello, who heads up the Export Plastic Program's housewares and rigid packaging group, said that exports of converted plastics had grown in every year but two going back to 1999, with minor contractions in 2002 and 2009 that coincided with economic recessions. Over the next two years, Agrello said that the Brazilian government will invest around $4 million in the Export Plastic Program, looking at the entire "chain" in the country, including its converting and upstream petrochemical and plastics businesses. At this time, target markets include the U.S., Chile, South Africa, Colombia, Peru, Panama, and Spain. In addition to the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, the export initiative has also been affected by a recent strengthening of the Brazilian Real.