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8 » LENSES February 2019 | AutoData Por Vicente Alessi, filho Sugestões, críticas, comentários, ofensas e assemelhados para esta coluna podem ser dirigidos para o e-mail vi@autodata.com.br SICKLE, HAMMER. It is no surprise that the Brazilian government which took office in January has held a sickle to open spaces in Brasilia, DF. The blade’s reach is still uncertain, but it is already known that the people of the former MDIC (Ministry of Industry, Foreign Trade and Services) was in its trajectory. With regard to the vehicles business Margareth Gandini, the industry’s main interlocutor in the process of creating Rota 2030 and thinking head of the Secretariat for Industrial Development, will have functions that are far from the sector. According to a person close to the subject, she is a professional with no ties to parties, but with still insufficient retrospect not to be, in the words of the source, left aside. SICKLE, HAMMER.2 Rota 2030 became law and will guide the Brazilian vehicle industry for the next fifteen years. Uncertainties, however, keep running through the heads of decision makers. This is because whoever hits the hammer in the government about the manufacturers’ wishes is inclined to promote changes in the new policy’s text. The current minister would have said (inside the same room occupied by his predecessor) that will not “deal with Rota at this moment, but we will make punctual changes in the course of time and the new policy”. There are those who would say that changes will be made precisely at the vital point of the new policy, which is no other thing than the incentives granted. Other measures, in the economic area, also scare and cause trouble sleeping, according to the source: “These guys will open the market, the exchange will fall, things will be more complicated for those who produce here in Brazil.” IMPASSE IN RS General Motors is about to launch its new line of vehicles for emerging markets and, in Gravataí, RS, tests have been made since last year on the new line, which have prompted stops for adjustments and something else: it was committed to solving a very important question in the supply chain. In short: it has determined its new partners through a competition based on the lowest price. Those who won kept their eye on the business scale because it was about global supply, and forgot to check - or decided to leave it later - if they could afford the price they affirmed possible to apply in the BIDs. Some companies encountered difficulties to comply with what had been established, and that generated problems for GM, especially in meeting production deadlines. IMPASSE IN RS 2 But there is more: reasonable contingent of those companies, those who won contracts, it was surprisingly communicated that they - the contracts - were frozen until further notice: until the company decides if it will, or not, stay in Brazil.