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57 AutoData | October 2018 distinct moments – although equally challenging. Argentina, he believes, will live through indispensable macroeconomic adjustments to get caught up on bills. These, allied with customer’s trust and resources to cope with a potential recession, will be decisive in 2019. Zarlenga, in any case, says he is confident about the recovery. “Sales were very good in the first half in Argentina. We still don’t know if the next months will be difficult: in local currency, in pesos, business may seem unattractive, but on the other hand, in dollars, purchases tend to become more interesting.” The executive believes that Argentina will close 2018 with 750 thousand units sold and that this volume will grow in 2019, even slightly, to something in the range of 760 thousand to 780 thousand vehicles. For Brazil, the executive believes that the market is located inside a context of long-term expectations today: “Discounting ups and downs we are in the standard of a growth line. The 3.8 million vehicles of 2013 were above it and 2018 is below”. About numbers, Zarlenga believes in total domestic sales of up to 2.6 million in 2018 and an increase of 7.7% in 2019 – in other words, something close to 2.8 million units sold in Brazil next year. “Customer’s trust is showing Closing 2019 Total market 2,8 million GDP 2,5% 1 US$ = R$ 3,85 Selic (interest rate) 8,1% Inflation 4,4% unshakable behavior and the interest rates continue to be attractive. This reflects on growth, which will also be helped by the arrival of new vehicles.” The GM moment, now, is the development of twenty brand new Chevrolet models, a process that, according to Zarlenga, is keeping everyone “very busy around here”. Consequently, because of possible numbers imbalance during this process, GM preferred not to present projections for 2019 regarding production and export. 20% of Brazilian production is exported to Argentina. And Argentina exports 80% of its production. Carlos Zarlenga