The Russian groups TMK and Commetpron will invest US$ 1.8 billion in the first phase of the construction of a flat steel metallurgy plant, in the industrial and port complex of Suape, in the metropolitan region of Recife.
This first phase is expected to be finished by 2006. The plant will have a production capacity of three million tons of steel per year.
The protocol of intent was signed Wednesday, May 25, by the companies’ directors, Sergey Vilkin and Klachkov Aleksandr, the President of the Brazil-Russia Chamber of Commerce, Antônio Carlos Rosset, and the state Secretary of Economic Development and Tourism, Alexandre Valença, at the headquarters of the Pernambuco Economic Development Agency (ADDiper).
Valença mentioned that several factors contributed for attracting the investment, which will generate approximately eight thousand direct jobs in 2010, when the plant will be totally concluded.
“Their opinion is that they found here everything they were looking for: infrastructure, geographic location in relation to Europe and the United States, tradition in the metallurgy sector, in addition to fine-tuned thoughts between the government and entrepreneurs,” he emphasized.
Recife is the capital of the Brazilian northern state of Pernambuco.
Berezovsky
The news agency Interfax informed that Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky, who is a political refugee in Great Britain, is also interested in doing business in Brazil.
He denied, however, having any interest in financing one of Brazil’s most popular soccer teams, the Corinthians, from São Paulo.
“Business in Brazil does interest me, but football as a business doesn’t. The club’s management asked me to buy this team. But I’m not going to do this,” he said.
ABr
