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30 March 2018 | AutoData STRATEGY » MERCOSUL X-ray of the automotive Mercosul in 2017 472 158 3 171 325 2 699 167 209 587 996 080 694 505 786 493 140 594 553 911 Production Total Production Total Exports Total Exports Total Region Exports Exports to Argentina Exports to Brazil In units. Source: Anfavea, Adefa and MDIC reaching a million. There is a need for automakers to balance this gap”. By its calculations, there are companies ope- rating at flex much above US$ 2. One of the companies exceeding the flex calculation at $ 1,5 is Volkswa- gen. Pablo Di Si, president and CEO of Volkswagen South America, revealed that the Argentine government has stipulated a deposit value for the company as gua- rantee. According to him the initiative “was not a surprise, because we had already talked with the headquarter about this last year”. According to the executive VWstrives to “rebalance the calculation to the lowest possible value. We are working to export more to a market that grew 35% last year”. One of the outputs, of course, is to expand imports fromArgentina to Brazil: “We have to bring more models like Amarok and SpaceFox and also components such as transmissions”. Nissan is also in a situation of imbalan- ce. For the manufacturer, the calculation tends to get even more complex in the first semester, since March and Versa Made in Brazil won the company of Ki- cks, launched in January. According to Marco Silva , president of Nissan Brazil, the situation tends to improve from the second half of the year, when the Frontier pickup production will be started in Argentina, which will be ex- ported to Brazil. Toyota’s public relations and gover- nment director, Ricardo Bastos, assures that the strategy of the company in Mer- cosul comes since the end of the 90s. “Our goal is to count on complementary products.” The company produces in Argentina the pickup Hilux and the SUV SW4. In to- tal, 126 thousand units of the two models manufactured there last year, half of whi- ch were exported to Brazil. The Argentine assembly line supplies, in total, to twenty countries in LatinAmerica and has recently gone through productive expansion that required investments of US$ 800 million. As for Brazilian Toyota production, Co- rolla and Etios, about 25% is exported to Argentina. “Integration is important be- cause if one market has a fall in sales the other can help to face it”, he said. Fabrício Biondo, vice president of PSA Group, also considers that the comple- mentation is a way of avoiding any local Disclousure/Toyota