GAF14 - Entrevista com Alessandro Maritano, vice-presidente para A.L. da New Holland (parte 1)

I'm fine. It's a pleasure to be here at Global Agribusiness Forum. Thank you for the invitation.

Ah, as leader of Latin America. As you can tell from my accent, I am Italian, 100% Italian, and for a year and a half now I have been leading the New Holland team in Latin America. I do this with great pleasure and satisfaction, after a career within Europe that grew my knowledge and experience in various stages and markets, including Spain, England, Northern Europe, Poland where we have a factory and a very important presence, and before coming here to Brazil, the Italian market, which within the European panorama is very important for New Holland, especially as part of the Fiat Group, but also for the European agricultural economy. So a year and a half ago, in July 2012, I was called to take on the challenge of Latin America, based here in Brazil, in Curitiba, and that's how this new adventure began.

Holland, by vocation, history, and presence, is a global brand. It intends, within the agricultural mechanization landscape, to satisfy all the needs of all Brazilian and global clients. So we cannot afford the luxury of staying out of any area, but undoubtedly Brazil today offers very important challenges in new areas of expansion, both in soybeans and sugarcane, as well as in family agriculture. So we are very present in the South, with prospects for expansion in Mato Grosso and in the Cerrado area in the Northeast of Brazil as well.

New Holland is about to celebrate, next year, 40 years of our factory in Curitiba. So we have been present directly in Brazil for 40 years, and it is with great pride that we do this. Brazilian agriculture is increasingly important, it is a professional agriculture that needs increasingly professional mechanization. So in this history, undoubtedly New Holland has played a very important role. Within New Holland worldwide, Brazil is an important region in technology development; we export technology to other regions. More and more, Brazil and Latin America in general are a fundamental part of global agriculture, and at New Holland as well. Today, 15% of New Holland's global revenue comes from Brazil, and the outlook for the next 5 to 10 years is to grow to 20-25%. Why? Because the expansion of agriculture worldwide will be heavily concentrated in Latin America and Brazil. Global food demand will grow, and product supply will grow where areas can be transformed into agricultural ones, and Brazil has many of these, without touching the environmental and forestry issues that Brazil needs and deserves.

New is a global brand and as such operates all over the world. Just to give you an idea, we are present in North America, Canada, Central America, Argentina, and certainly in Brazil. In Europe we have our strongest roots, so that's our largest presence, but we also have a part we call Asia-Pacific, which is in great development. India and China are markets of 500,000 tractors per year, half a million tractors, just to give you an idea. So it's certainly a very important market. There we have a good presence, both through a joint venture and sometimes direct presence. In Africa we don't yet have a production reality; we are thinking about it, but certainly as commercial coverage we are ensuring our presence as well.

Brazil exports, Brazil does export, and clearly has a dependence on the exchange rate trend of the Real compared to other currencies like the dollar and the Euro. But Brazil has production capacity to satisfy domestic demand, and when domestic demand is a bit lower, we open the doors to exports of national production as well.

Ah, undoubtedly the grain segment is where New Holland is strongest. It's stronger because it has more history, because we have a suitable product, and also because we have access to customers through a dealer network that guarantees capillarity, assistance, and support across the country. So grains are our strength, without forgetting everything else.

It is decentralized because each region has a research and development center, but there is a general coordination at the worldwide level of the various research and development efforts to avoid duplicating efforts and to undoubtedly take advantage of the best investigations we can do.

Thank you.