Companies among the global leaders in railway passenger transport expand their business in Brazil, with an eye on local opportunities. This is the case of the worldwide leader Bombardier Transportation, currently with 100,000 railway vehicles in operation, and also of Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF), companies that, despite their presence in Brazil for a number of years, only now have decided to take their timid performance aside and accelerate their Brazilian operations for the coming years.
The railway industry shall generate a volume of 111 billion euros in opportunities in this market on the period from 2014 to 2016. From this sum, Latin America is inside a share that comprises 21% of what will be generated, followed by Asia, with 4.4% of share, and by the North American and European markets, which will add 2.5%, for being developed in this segment.
Taking into account orders from the railway industry generated over the past two years, Bombardier shares the majority with Alstom, with 20% of the market each, followed by German-based Siemens, which holds 16% of the business. The remaining share (44%) is divided into companies such as CAF, the Japanese-based Hitachi, Kawasaki and Mitsubishi, as well as corporations like Rotem, Talgo and Thales, among other train manufacturers.
In this scenario, Brazil is one of the countries to eventually have more new projects in urban mobility under development; for example, metro stations and light rail vehicles (LRVs), said , Luis Ramos, Communication director of Bombardier for Brazil, Spain, Portugal, China and India, in an interview with DCI.
Recently, Bombardier signed a contract in the sum of U$ 225 million to modernize 26 trains from São Paulo metro system, with delivery scheduled for this year. “In a short term, opportunities of fleet renewal shall be generated, and the projects for monorails and LRVs will come out of the paper progressively,” says the company director.
Ramos also said that there are contracts in the signaling area and for providing maintenance services. He admitted that businesses in the Brazilian market have gained more relevance since last year, and the trend is for it to grow even more.
In Brazil, Bombardier expanded in 60% its industrial plant in the city of Hortolândia, State of São Paulo, where the company also created an engineering center. “The intention that generated such investments is to follow the market. We have good capacity there, but if the Brazilian market expands more, we can increase it, if necessary,” concluded the executive. Worldwide, Bombardier has 43 production plants, in 21 countries.
Spanish
A large area that once belonged to the former Companhia Brasileira de Materiais Ferroviários (Cobrasma) has given space to the installation of another company from this segment in Hortolândia. The Spanish-based CAF invested R$ 200 million to install its train factory there, with the intention of expanding its operation in Brazil.
“We have started to see in Brazil a serious movement towards urban mobility projects, which started in São Paulo. We are confident that this will spread to the rest of the industry and extend to other regions,” analyzes Paulo Fontenele, director-president of CAF Brasil.
The top executive of CAF stated that there are opportunities for business in metropolitan systems of capital cities such as Recife, Fortaleza and Belo Horizonte, as well as the LRV from Baixada Santista, locations where there may be bids to purchase railway cars.
“There shall also be future bids due to mobility works to serve events such as the World Cup and Olympic Games,” says the president of CAF, reminding of studies for projects in Southern capital cities, as well as Rio de Janeiro.
Fontenele said that the Hortolândia plant has static capacity for producing 500 cars a year, but it can be expanded in the future to comply with new contracts if necessary.
Currently, CAF has a public-private partnership (PPP) in Brazil, to an approximate sum of R$ 1.8 billion, including the delivery of over 80 trains to Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos (CPTM) and to Companhia do Metropolitano de São Paulo.
Worldwide, CAF has three plants in northern Spain, which serve the European and Asian markets, and another in New York, which supplies Mexico and the United States. The company has a portfolio of over US$ 7.7 billion in orders.
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