Sao Paulo, July 7 (Reuters) – The Chinese company byd (002594.SZ) is about to start assembling electric vehicles in a new factory in Brazil as soon as this month, said a senior executive, thus reducing imports as tariffs begin to increase in their largest foreign market.
Alexandre Baldy, BYD senior vice president in Brazil, said the goal is to assemble 50,000 cars this year at the Bay state plant from imported kits, and added that it is negotiating a lower tax rate for those vehicles.
“We should open in the next few days,” Baldy said in an interview on Friday night, without specifying a date, since the final regulatory approvals are still pending. “We have already completed the imports of this year, taking advantage of the period before the increase in import tax that entered into force on July 1.”
Byd sent a large number of cars finished to Brazil this year to take advantage of temporarily lower tariffs, dispatched about 22,000 vehicles from China in the first five months, according to reuters calculations.
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That generated complaints in the automotive industry of Brazil, which accused Byd of privileging manufacturing in China on production in Bay, where a work research and strong rains have affected the plans. A State Secretary of Labor said in May that the plant would only be “totally operational” at the end of 2026.
However, Baldy said that complete production will begin in July 2026, after assembling vehicles from CKD Kits (“completely unarmed”) over the next 12 months.
Once it is fully operational, he said, the Camçari complex will probably generate up to 20,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The expectations for the operation, located on the site of an old Ford plant that was acquired in 2023, were affected in December, when labor inspectors presented accusations of labor abuses against Chinese contractors hired to build the complex.
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Brazilian prosecutors filed a lawsuit in May responsible for Byd for trafficking in persons and submitting workers to “similar conditions to slavery”, after negotiations for an agreement failed.
“Byd has always tried to respect Brazilian law and human dignity in all its operations,” said Baldy, added that the company wanted to reach a solution. He did not explain why the efforts to negotiate an agreement failed.
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