The event “Green productive development policies and productive integration in Latin America: Opportunities and challenges for the electric bus chain” provided a meeting between public policy makers, leaders, experts and actors in the productive sector on June 19, 2024, in Brasilia, Brazil. The event marked the beginning of collaboration opportunities to increase regional integration for green productive development in Latin America with a focus on the opportunities that arise for the electric bus chain. The event, co-organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services (MDIC) and the National Council for Industrial Development (CNDI), was part of the activities of the Program Technical Cooperation “Inclusive, Sustainable and Intelligent Cities (CISI)” between ECLAC and the German Ministry of Cooperation and Development (BMZ), through the German Technical Cooperation (GIZ).
The discussions promoted on this occasion were based on the notable emergence of explicit strategies and policies for the green productive development of both central and peripheral economies. As a whole, these policies have been structured with the vision of missions or strategic areas, especially those linked to decarbonisation and fair ecological transformation. In the field of green productive development, industrial policy instruments with a classic approach (tax incentives, public procurement, financing mechanisms, etc.) are combined with contemporary approaches, including modern climate policy instruments (e.g. carbon pricing mechanisms, environmental regulation, emissions targets, etc.).
One of the missions or strategic areas commonly present in this new generation of productive development policies in Latin America is electromobility. ECLAC has highlighted investments in electric buses as an opportunity for a Great Boost to Sustainability in which sustainability, energy efficiency, economic growth and regional productive integration are promoted. In the electromobility sector, countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia play a crucial role due to their industrial capacities and reserves of strategic minerals, notably the Lithium Triangle that contains 60% of the world’s reserves of the essential mineral for electric vehicle batteries.
In this sense, the event in question aimed to contribute to the understanding of Latin American countries about the challenges and opportunities for regional productive integration of the electric bus sector, which is a potential sector for green productive development. At the opening table, the Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services of Brazil (MDIC), Márcio Fernando Elias Rosa, and the Executive Secretary of the National Industrial Development Council (CNDI), Verena Hitner highlighted the importance of the New Industry Brazil (NIB): Action Plan for the Neoindustrialization 2024-2026 of Brazil whose third mission is focused precisely on sustainable mobility for the promotion of productive integration and well-being in cities. Verena Hitner highlighted that the NIB “is a policy that looks at the right to mobility and access to public transportation and from that right the processes of productive densification are built.” Next, the Director of the Department of Regional Integration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, Daniela Benjamin, shared about the importance of regional cooperation and integration as a strategy to strengthen Latin American economies. The opening and presentation words (available in annex) by the Director of the ECLAC Office in Brazil, Camila Gramkow, on the panorama of the electric bus production chain in Latin America, clearly illustrated the scenario of accelerated demand for buses electricity associated with potential regional production capacities in this sector, pointing out strengths and bottlenecks to generate a great boost to green productive development in the region.
Moderated by Angela Peñagos, Director of the ECLAC Office in Colombia, the first panel of the event focused on the objectives, goals and instruments of the electric bus chain as a strategy for green productive development in Latin America. The panel included the participation of leaders and public policy makers from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Chile, who shared experiences and views on the topic. Matías Fernández, Coordinator of the Energy Department of the Argentine Metallurgical Industry Association (ADIMRA), made a presentation on the strengths and barriers of electromobility in the country. The Coordinator commented on the need to import complete units of electric vehicles in the face of the lack of development of local value chains, but also noted that the automotive sector already established in Argentina could develop knowledge to reconvert its production of combustion buses into electric ones. Representing Brazil, the Secretary of Industrial Development, Innovation, Trade and Services of the Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services of Brazil (MDIC), Uallace Moreira, mentioned the importance of the New Industry Brazil (NIB) to reverse the loss of technological complexity and productive density that the country has experienced in recent years. The competitive skills built in Brazil in the automotive sector indicate that the electromobility sector represents a window of opportunity for neo-industrialization and for the maturation of productive structures with a view to the well-being of society and the region. Next, Fernando Hentzchel, Manager of Technological Capabilities of the Corporation for the Promotion of Production of Chile (CORFO), presented (file available attached) the bases of a new model of sustainable productive development in Chile. Fernando defined the model as a balance between economic, social and environmental trajectories that guarantee carbon neutrality and the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity, generating quality jobs, greater productivity and greater justice and equity. For him, it is necessary to diversify and sophisticate the country’s productive matrix, through the use and creation of knowledge, with electromobility being an excellent catalyst for this. The manager also presented the lithium industry and its value chain in Chile and pointed out opportunities for regional integration, especially regarding trade between Chile and Brazil. Concluding the first panel of the event, Eduardo Enríquez, Vice Minister of Transport of Colombia, presented (file available attached) the diagnosis of the transport sector and its greenhouse gas emissions and public policy instruments in place in the country. The Vice Minister highlighted the National Urban Transport Policy (PND) and the National Reindustrialization Policy to facilitate the transition from an extractive economy to a knowledge-based, productive and sustainable economy that strengthens the productive chains of sustainable mobility in Colombia.
To comment on the presentations and information shared, Piergiuseppe Fortunato, Principal Economist of the Regional Integration and Industrial Policy Program for Transformational Change and Resilience in Latin America at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and Alexandre were invited Polesi, Executive Secretary of the Brazilian Association of Electric Vehicles (ABVE). Piergiuseppe highlighted the visible alignment between the different policies and initiatives presented in the region and reinforced the importance of multilateralism to overcome current challenges. The economist referred to Celso Furtado, patron of ECLAC, who defended the strengthening of regional value chains as an integration strategy, with a view to expanding, diversifying and adding value to the countries’ exports, and who also recognized the essentiality of popular participation for the construction of national development projects. The Executive Secretary of ABVE, Alexandre Polesi, reinforced the need to incorporate the vision of the private sector, companies and industrial representations in the planning and implementation of the policies discussed at the event, highlighting that “it is very important that the integration “It also occurs between companies and commercial entities.” Alexandre agreed that sustainability and the energy transition should be issues that unite the countries of the region, even in the field of trade agreements and cited the importance of standardization agreements mainly in electromobility infrastructure to facilitate the flow between countries. .
The second part of the day’s event was dedicated to the specificities of the productive integration of the electric bus chain in Latin America. The Economic Affairs Officer of ECLAC’s Productive and Business Development Division (DDPE), Nicolo Gligo, moderated the first round table in the afternoon, which was attended by more than thirty representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Chile from the public and private sectors. Those present commented on the exogenous and endogenous barriers of the electric bus value chain, making a broad diagnosis of the sector, the shortcomings or gaps in regulation, the need to develop infrastructure to address electric mobility, the importance of deepening technological routes internally and the investment challenges in the specific context of each country and in the regional context.
In the following session, the Executive Secretary of the National Industrial Development Council of Brazil, Verena Hitner, led the second round table, inviting those present to discuss a possible regional agenda for the development of the electric bus chain in Latin America and stated that Brazil intends to develop objectives for Latin American productive integration. The Secretary asked the group to reflect on possible ambitions, parameters and objectives for integration. Contributions of suggestions focused on: building regional technical standards to facilitate interoperability between countries; generation of regional aggregate demand; development of regulations for public procurement that prioritize regional content; development of a South American energy market; preparation of a regional circular economy plan that foresees, for example, the conversion of combustion buses to electric ones; regional discussion on the use of the strategic set of rare earths; sharing a scientific and technological development roadmap and organizing business meetings to build a productive sectoral agenda for regional integration.
At the end of the event, Franco César Bernardes, Head of the Automotive Technical Requirements Division, Department of Development of the High-Medium Technological Complexity Industry of the MDIC and Camila Gramkow, Director of the ECLAC Office in Brazil, thanked and recognized the contributions raised throughout the event and reinforced the importance of the contributions offered. Both MDIC and ECLAC, in their final words, expressed their interest in continuing to support discussion spaces to advance a regional agenda for the development of the electric bus chain in Latin America.
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