Os industrios de Manaus

January 21, 2010

After an amazing party thrown by our first class and lunch with our office, the Employment Specialist from our office, Carlos Valente, gave us a tour of the industrial area of Manaus. Carlos is a native of Manaus and has worked his way up from selling Picolé (a kind of popsicle) in the street, to working in a factory, to being a teacher, to being a principal, to being in charge of multiple schools, to working for the Employment Center which is the highest paying of all of the previous jobs.

There is a massive area along the Amazon River outside of Manaus that has been dedicated exclusively for the use of large factories. As more factories move in this area keeps growing and they cut out more and more rain forest. There are preserves through out the whole area where factories are not allowed to build to protect the wildlife, but I do not understand how such a small isolated area in the middle of so much pollution could protect any wild animal. There are over 400 large factories in this one area and together they employ over 100,000 people. This area has been the economic lifeblood of Manaus since the rubber boom faded out in the 1920’s. As we drove around I spotted many familiar brands such as Sony, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Procter and Gamble, Samsung, Kodak, 3M, Petrobras, LG, RCA, and the list goes on. They produce everything from steel to cars to motorcycles to laptops to the little aluminum part that opens the top of your can of soda. It was truly amazing to see how much was being produced and all the people that are being employed. We got to experience a little part of this because some of the factories starting letting out the masses of employees as we left, and we got caught in a little bit of traffic. Thousands of buses take the factory worker to and from work everyday. Some were nice buses with air conditioning and others looked like Bahian buses with plastic seats. I wondered why there were so many factories and refineries here in Manaus, because to me it did not make sense to transport all the raw materials to the middle of jungle just to be transported back. After asking a few questions and confirming online, it turns out that back when Castelo Branco, the first dictator, started taking control of Brazil in 1964, the government imposed a heavy tax and many regulations on especially business, some of which exist until today. The only area that was left untouched was the state of Amazonas. This whole area was set-aside as a Free Trade Area and was thus free from taxes or regulations. Some things have changed since then, but compared with the rest of Brazil, Amazonas is relatively free of taxes and regulations with regards to big business. The difference is incredible between Manuas and Bahia where I served my mission. Manaus is buzzing center of commerce; business has flourished and the over all standard of living is much higher for everyone. It is interesting how much difference government regulation makes in how successful businesses can be.