CAN THE MANUFACTURERS OF TWO-WHEELED VEHICLES IN THE MANAUS FREE TRADE ZONE BE SEEN AS BELONGING TO A CLUSTER?

Abstract

The Manaus Free Trade Zone (MFZ) is a model of economic development with the objective of integrating the North region with the rest of the country. This model is important because it reconciles economic and social growth with the preservation of the forest. Among the segments of the Manaus Industrial Sector (MIS), the two-wheeler has a large concentration of activities in this sector in this region. In this sense, the present article sought, based on the literature and using concentration (LG) and location (LC) index, to verify whether companies in this segment have characteristics that define them as members of an industrial cluster. To identify these characteristics, basic steps were taken to map in a quantitative way: the definition of the economic region; the calculation of concentrations of employment, companies, turnover and transformation value through LC and LG and the selection of CNAE classes. The LC result found ranged from 17.03 to 62.20, depending on the sector's area of activity and the database used. A LC greater than 1 indicates that there is a concentration of the specified economic activity in the observed sector higher than the concentration of this activity in the country. LG values for RAIS formal jobs and establishments data in 2018 and PIA's net sales, personnel occupation and transformation value in 2018 ranged from 0.5273 to 0.9414 for Brazil, showing a higher concentration of these indicators in the municipality of Manaus-AM. Several characteristics of industrial clusters were evaluated, among them: defined geographical space, using location and concentration indicators, respectively (LC and LG); governmental participation in clusters through tax incentives; horizontal and vertical cooperation; concentration of specialized labor. This work presents itself as an initial step towards the definition of whether the MIS two-wheel sub-pole is characterized as a cluster.