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The Camaçari Industrial Complex in Bahia attracted worldwide attention following BYD’s announcement in 2023 that it would be home to the electric vehicle company’s largest factory outside China. Inaugurated in 1978, the industrial hub was Brazil’s first planned petrochemical complex, forming the centerpiece of a national industrial development project that ran until the end of the 1980s. The complex has historically contributed to economic development in the region by generating employment and providing job training opportunities. From the 1990s onwards, however, amid the liberalization of trade and rise of foreign competition, the complex underwent significant structural changes.
Camaçari has always hosted industries that complement the petrochemical chain, but its twenty-first century expansion was sparked by the arrival of the automobile industry. American automaker Ford set up shop in the 2000s, but after two decades of operation, Ford closed its doors in 2021 and halted production of the low-margin light vehicles EcoSport, T4, and the Ford Ka. Today, the complex is undergoing yet another process of sectoral expansion, attracting investments from electric vehicle manufacturers and renewable energy companies, mostly of Chinese origin. Emblematically, the new BYD factory is being built on the former Ford site, with its address on Avenida Henry Ford.
Over the years, the petrochemical center first emerged as an industrial center, and it is yet again poised to transform into a green industrial center. Alfredo Santos is the General Secretary of CUT-Bahia and press coordinator for the Chemical, Petrochemical, Plastics, Fertilizers and Chemical Terminals Workers’ Union (Sindiquímica). In the following interview, Santos speaks with Phenomenal World editor Maria Sikorski about Camaçari’s role in Brazil’s project of green reindustrialization from the perspective of the working class. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
An interview with Alfredo Santos
Maria Sikorski: Can you tell us about the history of the Camaçari complex and its relationship to Brazilian industrial policy?
Alfredo santos: The Camaçari complex was built between the mid-1970s and the early 1980s. It emerged as a tripartite ownership model: the shareholder composition included national private capital, multinationals, and Brazilian state capital. A raw materials plant controlled by a public company, Copene, which was later privatized, promoted second-generation industries. The petrochemical plant supplied the basis of the production chain for naphtha, ethylene, propylene, etc. The tripartite ownership model is an example of how industrialization in Brazil has only occurred with strong state participation, either directly, as was the case with the Camaçari complex, or indirectly, through Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) financing. Both when the complex was first set up and today, private companies—including Chinese companies that have recently set up shop—have received funding from the Bank. It is the Brazilian state that finances industrialization.
Camaçari continued to grow throughout the 1980s and 1990s. However, since the opening up of trade under the Collor government (1990–1992) and more markedly during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002), the complex has faced a crisis of productivity and international competitiveness and as a result has suffered from reductions in investment and factory closures. At the beginning of the 1990s, the complex accounted for more than 30,000 direct jobs. By the end of the decade, the number had fallen to just over 10,000.
From 2003 onwards, with the first Lula government (2003–2010), the Brazilian state once again invested in industrialization, but indirectly: Petrobras became an important investor in Brazil’s so-called “big players.” One outcome of this process is Braskem—Petrobras now holds 47 percent of the company’s shares. Some international competitiveness has been regained, but the production of central raw materials and the thermoplastic resin chain has been increasingly monopolized, resulting in the closure of several companies that were unable to compete with the big players.
The Brazilian petrochemical sector today faces a massive crisis. The Camaçari complex is unable to compete internationally. The fertilizer sector is a case in point: 85 percent of the fertilizers used by Brazilian agribusiness are imported. The thermoplastic chain imports around half of the inputs it uses. This influx of imported products into the petrochemical chains happens for two reasons. The domestic cost of the chains has become very high compared to more modern chains that are gas-based instead of naphtha-based. The US, Arab, and Indian industries export a product at a lower price than our domestic production cost, both because of the lack of technological advancements in our plants and because of environmental factors: the US, for example, uses gas from fracking, which has a much lower production cost, but is extremely damaging to the environment. Brazil does not produce gas from fracking and even has environmental restrictions on its use. What’s more, the price of Brazilian natural gas is up to five times higher than the US price. This undermines the international competitiveness of our petrochemical industry. If the country doesn’t have an industrial policy aimed at preserving the domestic market, the tendency is for all these industries to go under.
MS: Bahia has been identified nationally and internationally as an essential part of Brazil’s green reindustrialization project and the global energy transition. It is the state that produces the most renewable energy from solar and wind sources in the country and has attracted a lot of foreign investment, especially Chinese, in these production chains.
With the promise of BYD’s electric car manufacturing and the installation of other Chinese companies in the renewable energy sector, some say that Camaçari could become a catalyst for the green reindustrialization of Brazil. When announcing the installation of the factory on the former Ford site, for example, BYD promised to bring high value-added stages of the electric vehicle production chain to the complex, including those related to research and development, as well as generating thousands of jobs. BYD’s CEO for the Americas, Stella Li, stated that the aim was to turn Camaçari into a “Brazilian Silicon Valley.”
Amid a crisis in the petrochemical sector, does the entry of other supply chains represent a resumption of Camaçari’s role in national development?
as: The Ford plant, inaugurated in 2001, represented the start of the automotive chain in the Camaçari complex. In 2021, after twenty years, Ford closed its operations and more recently Chinese companies such as BYD have started to invest in the auto supply chain. Other Chinese companies in the renewable energy sector, such as Sinoma and Goldwind, have also set up shop in the complex. The process of attracting BYD to Bahia involved a significant amount of state subsidies. The government of Bahia made electric cars exempt from the motor vehicle ownership tax (IPVA) from 2024, for example. BYD also received public incentives for utilizing the land that belonged to Ford, and the company also received funding from the BNDES.
Although the BYD plant is promised to actually function as a factory, right now, these companies are only operating as assemblers, practically maquiladoras. The higher value-added stages of the supply chain are not yet in Bahia. The petrochemical complex has great potential for battery production, but the batteries for these vehicles have yet to be produced here. There’s also a potential for lithium processing, as well as in the plastics industry for the production of parts. It is possible to produce the cars here, but so far BYD’s promise has not materialized.
What can we demand from these companies to accompany the state subsidies? This is the role of the Brazilian state in the project of reindustrialization. If BYD only sets up mere assembly plants, what do we get out of it? Now, if the state demanded that, within a certain period of time, BYD process lithium in Brazil and manufacture batteries here, that it use local industries to manufacture parts, that it actually have parts of the production chain operating here, things would change.
In the past, there was a similar debate in the petrochemical industry. The national content policy for the oil product stream—abandoned after the 2016 coup—required every industry that provided services to Petrobras to have a percentage of its machinery produced in Brazil. The country’s shipbuilding industry was reborn during that period and, when local content was no longer required, it broke down again.
Brazilian industry can’t compete without some form of state incentive. There is no industrialization without state participation. If the industrialization project doesn’t require counterparts to foreign investment, be it American, Chinese or from anywhere else, Brazil will simply play a role in another country’s industrial policy. No company decides to expand its operations to another country altruistically. If it invests, it’s because it serves its own interests. And investment, from whatever source, is always good. The question is what we demand of investors in order to satisfy national interests as well.
For many years, Brazilian industrialization was very dependent on the United States. If we simply replace US imperialism with Chinese imperialism, we’ll end up with the same result. We can’t simply cater to the interests of those who want to invest. Foreign investors want to make a profit. What does the country gain when it subsidizes their profit-making?
MS: How does the Bahia trade union movement view the role of the New Industry Brazil (NIB) program in promoting the national interest in the country’s green reindustrialization project?
as: So far, NIB is just a plan on paper. It’s difficult to analyze without observing the real impact through data, and the program hasn’t yet shown what it will become. But one thing that’s important to keep in mind when talking about green industrialization is: who pays the price?
In the trade union movement, we jokingly say, “Well, alcohol is a cleaner fuel than gasoline, but I’d rather work at Petrobras than in the alcohol industry.” The green industry cannot be made economically viable by reducing the cost of the workforce. What we have seen is that the supposedly most sustainable sectors of the industry today are the ones with the most precarious jobs. If biodiesel has a higher production cost than diesel, how do you ensure that the green alternative reaches the pump at the same price? By making the workforce in the biodiesel production chain more precarious. That’s impossible!
This contradiction exists not only in Brazil, but all over the world: the dirty industries, the oldest ones, are the ones that offer the best working conditions, including from the point of view of workers’ health. You only have to look at the working conditions in a sugar cane mill or in the aluminum recycling industry with can collectors. Someone might say that waste pickers aren’t part of the recycling industry, but the fact is that the recycling industry only exists in Brazil because of waste pickers. Brazil is the record holder in aluminum recycling, not because it has a great logistics project, but because there are a lot of impoverished people who need to collect cans to survive and who, in doing so, foster a production chain that is extremely profitable.
Electric cars are another example: due to the technology used, the sector generates far fewer jobs than the combustion car industry. It’s much simpler engineering: the electric vehicle has a body, battery and engine, while the combustion car has oil, a belt, filter, head, piston, connecting rod. In short: several other factories are needed to supply products and parts for this industry.
The trade union movement’s criticism of renewable energy chains follows the same line. Today, Bahia is the state that produces the most clean energy in Brazil and basically “exports wind” to the South and Southeast of the country without any compensation for the communities where the wind farms—which have a huge social and environmental impact—or the solar panels are installed. At the same time, the parts of the production chain that generate the most jobs, such as the manufacture of turbines, photovoltaic panels and maintenance parts, are not here. We are left with the worst part of the whole supply chain: the one with the greatest impact and lowest return. This is a localized reproduction of the same dynamic that can be observed between countries at the center and periphery. Will the role of the Northeast in Brazilian industrialization be reduced to generating energy and carbon credits to be consumed in the South and Southeast? The Northeast is the region in Brazil that produces the most solar energy, but it doesn’t have a photovoltaic panel factory.
In the same vein, I believe that the NIB needs to include a geopolitical discussion about Brazil’s green industrialization objectives. Are we going to pay for the energy transition of the countries that have historically polluted the most? Will our role be to generate clean energy and carbon credits for the countries of the global North to consume? Once again, it’s the weaker that end paying for the energy transition. So far, it seems that the lowest value-added, least complex and least job-generating parts of the green production chains are those in Brazil or other peripheral countries. This is the persistent international division of labor. The most precarious jobs stay in the periphery and the most technologically-advanced and well-paid jobs stay in the center of capitalism. The NIB needs to engage in dialogue with the Chinese interest entering Brazil, for example, to demand counterparts to the state subsidy that would reverse our subordinate role in the international division of labor.
Obviously, we are in favor of promoting green industry, but we argue that it should come with state funding. The state, not the worker, should pay for the transition. When the economic viability of biodiesel comes from the precariousness of the workforce, the state is making the worker pay for the energy transition. On the contrary, we advocate for a truly just energy transition.
MS: So how would you summarize the trade union movement’s demand for Brazil’s green reindustrialization?
as: The trade union movement’s demand is that green industrialization should not lose sight of the fact that workers are a fundamental part of this process. The quantity, quality, wage, and other conditions of these jobs generated through green industrialization must be equal to or better than what was observed in previous industrialization processes. Under no circumstances can we continue to use job insecurity as a mechanism to make green industry economically viable. The energy transition needs to happen, the planet can’t wait, but it needs to happen bearing in mind that workers are also part of the environment. If we sacrifice workers, who will the transition save?
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