The isolation of Brazil and its automobile industry from the global advances and changes in the automotive sector is making the country unattractive to parent carmaker companies, according to the president of Mercedes-Benz do Brasil, Philipp Schiemer.
"We are not paying attention to what is happening in the world. The past few years have been good for many companies in the global sense, but new challenges are emerging from autonomous, electric, shared vehicles, and this requires strong investment from parent companies," he says.
"Companies are going to look much more carefully where they invest the money, which is scarce, and they will not invest in countries that are not competitive. Brazil is missing the train of the future, and this worries me", added Schiemer, who was participating in the Forum Think Estad on Wednesday (12).
Brazil's lack of attractiveness goes along with the economic and political uncertainties that surround the country, as well as its structural problems, such as the tax system.
According to Antônio Filosa, president of FCA América Latina, owner of Fiat, the risk of investing in a country is acceptable for parent companies when the political and economic scenario supports scale and predictability.
"In Brazil, there is a gap in fiscal engineering, the competitiveness of taxes not recovered at the time of export and also of scale," he says.
Schiemer says that Brazil needs to "open up to the world," not only in exports but also in imports. "We will not have all the technologies available here at first. If we do not have access to this technology, the industry here will die."
Brazilian automotive sector has been suffering from the crisis in Argentina, the main destination of the cars produced in the country.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon