Despite all the difficulties caused by the second wave of the pandemic in Brazil, as well as from the production bottlenecks, the auto industry managed to maintain a good rhythm of activity. In April 190.9 thousand units were produced, 4.7% below March, but this month had three business days less than the previous one. As in April 2020 Brazil went through a major shut down of factories and dealers, the performance comparison with April 2021 is not applicable. Therefore, the best reference is the accumulated volume of the year, with  788.7 thousand units produced, surpassing by 34.2% the result of the first four months of last year. "We must emphasize the resilience of the automotive chain at a time of crisis, especially in the areas of logistics, purchasing and production planning for our associates," said ANFAVEA President, Luiz Carlos Moraes. Also worth of note is the exports performance, with an increase of 34.7% in the accumulated result for the year. In April 33.9 thousand vehicles were shipped, accumulating 129.6 thousand in the year. Shipments have grown to most markets, specially to Colombia. Domestic sales also grew during the first quarter. Sales for April were of 175.1 thousand vehicles and 703 thousand in the accumulated result for the year, an increase of 14.5% over the first four months of 2020. Trucks and light commercial vehicles (pickup trucks, mainly) had a sales increase of over 40% in 2021, a performance superior of buses (13.2% growth) and automobiles (7.7%). “These results indicate that our projections made in January are feasible to be reached, unless we face  some exceptional and unexpected situation during the second half of the year”, evaluated Moraes. ANFAVEA estimates a growth of 15% in sales, 25% in production and 9% in exports for 2021. Growing in foreign markets is fundamental In addition to the results for the four-month period, ANFAVEA presented data showing how distant Brazil is from other producing countries in terms of external presence. In the global ranking, we are the seventh largest market in sales, the ninth in production, but only 26th in the list of exporters in values ​​(US $). Other producing countries concentrate their production volumes exports rather than their domestic markets, such as Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Spain and India. Brazil is also poorly positioned in the competitiveness ranking, at the penultimate position among the 18 developing countries, ahead only of Argentina, according to a study made by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI). “The increase in exports is crucial for the strengthening of the Industry. To achieve that, it is necessary to create an export policy with measures capable of reducing the Brazilian Cost, expanding international trade agreements and modernizing and strengthening the export financing system”, defended the President of ANFAVEA.   Download ANFAVEA press release Download ANFAVEA media presentation Download ANFAVEA report (Portuguese, English and Spanish)