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28 October 2018 | AutoData PERSPECTIVES 2019 » OVERVIEW INFRASTRUCTURE The hope of many, specially in the sectors of trucks and construction machinery, is that the new government resume the constructions that are stopped direction, having effective plans to rapidly increase the speed of assembly lines with minimum aggregation of fixed costs. In practice, it is a question of repeating what companies have been forced to do without much planning during this year, so many and so diversified were the sur- prises that emerged and interspersed in the middle of the way, whether positive or negative. The Brazilian first quarter figures, it’s worth recalling it, showed much higher growth than expected, which encouraged the upwards revision of projections for the year. And in all aspects: domestic sales, production and even exports, because the domestic market of Argentina showed a willingness to consume 1 million units, a considerable part of it manufactured in Brazil. In the second trimester, however, the impact of the truckers’ strike has shaken the confidence of business owners and customers about the future, with direct effects on domestic sales of cars and light commercial vehicles. At the beginning of the second half, besides that, a scenario of exchange rate crisis was added to the high inflation and forced the Argentine government to dras- tically increase interest rates, create new taxes and appeal to the IMF. The result: internal recession and, at the end of Sep- tember, the departure of the president of Caoa Chery FCA Ford GM Honda Nissan PSA Toyota VW 2019: Brazil’s intern market growth Automobiles and light commercial vehicles 4 10 5 10 5 7,7 5 8 3 10 15 5 5 8 Average: 5,5% to 8% Photos: Disclousure/Escola do Teatro Bolshoi