Sr. Fernando de Arruda Botelho Shareholder and Sr. Marcos de Moura Wanderley - Gerente General CAMARGO CORREA

Marcos de Moura Wanderlay General Manager Camargo Correa

Press Tribune: What is your opinion on the business opportunities in Peru?

Mr. Botelho: I think now Peru is in a very good position. Sometimes for Brazilian companies it gets a bit complicated to go to some countries that are far away from Brazil. Alan García has showed that he is constant, that he has learned, and that he is trying to do good things. Brazilian companies have been trying to go abroad for five years now. We know that is very important to have a global process. The first step is Latin America, then the United States and Europe and then finally Asia. That is why I think Peru can be a very good partner of Brazil today.

Press Tribune: How would you explain the growing interest of the Brazilian companies into the Peruvian market?

Mr. Botelho: It is the perfect time for Brazil and Peru to get together because Peru can be a very good partner for Brazil. We have been working in Paraguay, but Paraguay is passing through some problems. Paraguay has a different business culture. If you don't open the economy, this is a World Bank rule, how can you create business? The government can do anything against you; you want to go to countries that have stability.

Peru has stability, is growing very fast when the Brazilian companies are going abroad. We are the only company that chose Argentina when we bought Loma Negra. Today the company is running well Loma Negra has a railroad and this railroad is going to grow a lot more now. Amalita Fortabat is a fantastic woman, we respect her very much, because being alone, she lost her husband a long time ago and ran the company very well. We bought a very good company; we maintain what she did in the past. Like in Argentina if we buy a company here, we are going to make the company grow, like the Peruvians, they are going to be very happy, because we will maintain the rules of the company, we will educate people from the country, we want the people from the country to run the company. Camargo is a very human company. We are also developing a touristic project in the Amazon, we are not doing this because we have hotels in the Amazon, we are doing this for the Amazon, because we feel and we know this is important.

Press Tribune: The group is present in a lot of countries in South America, also in Africa, in Mozambique. Is it correct to say that Peru is right now a top priority in terms of investment?

Mr. Botelho: We just made a big investment in Argentina, and now we are looking for Peru as a priority.

Press Tribune: What other investments do you have in Latin America?

Mr. Botelho: We started small and we grew in Chile with the Texaco first experience, then we bought Loma Negra in Argentina, and now we just bought Alpargatas in Argentina. Alpargatas used to be an Argentinean company but we bought the Brazilian share. When the Argentinean company had a problem, went bankrupt, and the banks tried to put the company up again, we bought the company, it is small but we just bought it. We are also going to buy a company in Mexico. Camargo Correa is a family group and very well capitalized. We go slowly, but firmly.
Right now we don't want to invest in more than what we have. We are very diversified. We want to concentrate in finishing the businesses we have. We own the biggest company in the distribution of energy sector so we are putting this company together to grow.

Press Tribune: You have been in Peru for ten years, what other things would you like to highlight about your investments in Peru?

Mr. Botelho: In ten years we have performed public jobs, public bids and we performed mostly roads, roads improvement and roads assessment.

Over the past three years we changed our objectives and ours targets, we designed publics works and we focused into concessions. This is a big deal, because it involves a lot of confidence in the country, in the laws and in the system.

We are participating, we own a concessioner called InterSur, which we sponsored for the fourth stretch from the Interoceanica Sur, and we are looking forward to participate in the new bids that the government is willing to publish. We have some specific sessions in mind. There is the sanitation business, sanitation water supply, transportation and energy.

Press Tribune: What is the main competitive advantage Camargo in Peru?

Mr. Wanderley: We have technology, we have experience in this country, we have local manpower and local machinery. So this brings out our prices competitive, even against the locals. Because we brought some Brazilian technology and we trained local people, so our manpower is cheaper than if what we bring it from Brazil. We used to bring Brazilian executives now we are using local executives, local manpower, so we are in a very competitive position.

This is very important: we have been bringing a lot investment from Brazil in partnership with other companies for a long time so today Camargo Correa has the knowledge of partnership with the Peruvian companies. We bought a lot of new companies such as distributors of electricity and we got two roads with some partners.
Camargo Correa today is a company that knows how to do business together, and how to do business in partnership with other companies in Peru.

Press Tribune: Due to its strategic position, Peru might become a new export platform for many Brazilian companies. Are you considering other businesses, other investments besides construction?

Mr. Botelho: Yes, completely. We are going to bring part of the group to Peru. Camargo is going to bring much more of the company here.

Press Tribune: What other sectors are you interested in?

Mr. Botelho: Camargo has 65% of the whole Brazilian hydroelectric, 8% of the world. So we are looking at this opportunity. The liquidity of Camargo, the ethics of Camargo are well known, it is like a seal of approval. If Camargo is involved then it is something good. Today we know how to build a plant. It is very difficult and you need a lot of expertise because it takes a long technical process and the financial structure is very complex. Hydroelectric is one of our core businesses.

Press Tribune: Are you planning to invest in the electricity distribution business in Peru?

Mr. Botelho: It could be a possibility; it depends on the plans of each company. We have to do a lot of things in Brazil yet. The big asset of Camargo's headquarters is the amount of energy that the company has, the company works all these fields. This brings a lot of energy from the company inside our field, so we have all these companies textiles, cement, energy, construction and engineering and we continue as a team with so much synergy.

Press Tribune: Can you elaborate on your corporate social strategy?

Mr. Botelho: For Camargo Correa it is a very important thing since the beginning. Mr. Camargo, was a man who lost his mother and father when he was only nine, and he was a normal employee of a construction company. He was a self made man like Kennedy or JP. Morgan. He was very poor, he didn't have education, he never went to college, or even high school. He has always treated the employees very well.

The rule in Camargo Correa since it was created was that Mr. Camargo, when he had dinner, in any restaurant or any place in the middle of the jungle, the food would be the same as the one he would be having at home. His bedroom had to be the same as the one in his home. The people of Camargo are a family. We have worked in the most difficult places of Brazil. They are difficult to reach. We are a company that works a lot in the Amazon. In Tucuiri we started building a dam, the 4th largest in the world. We built a school in San Paulo of 15.000 students. This school now belongs to the Ministry of Education, it is a very good school and because of this experience and today is a huge school. All the companies that worked with Camargo try to follow the things that Camargo do.
We are very commited, the shareholders of Camargo are working in different NGOs, and we have our institutes, like Camargo Institute. We have a foundation with the Queen of Sweeden. My sister in law is in the Instituto de Cuba. The other sister is working with the Legionarios de Cristo, a catholic congregation. We finance a seminar, which is a university for the Legionarios de Cristo. Mr. Camargo, the founder, his family has kept the tradition and the spirit of the company, today at the dining room during lunch, his seat was still empty waiting for him, it belongs to him.

Mr. Wanderley: I would like to add something regarding social environment and training. We have a system that can be controlled totally online, from my desktop here in Lima I know exactly what is going on in the camp site. We trained all Peruvian people to operate the system in Sao Paulo. They went to Sao Paulo and our technicians came here and trained our local people here and now we have Peruvians training Bolivians.
We trained people, we educated people, we went to their schools, we improved their schools, and we taught them all sanitation procedures. We are an infrastructure industry, we have to remove and people don't have to deal with that. That is our social contribution.

Press Tribune: What is the policy of the company in terms of security?

Mr. Wanderley: We export the work standards that we used to apply in Brazil and brought them here like labor standards, Camargo is known as a company which works above labor standards, labor security. Labor safety for the workers is a very important issue for Camargo. Camargo has the highest level of security or safety for workers.
We have followed Camargo's high standards inspite our client standards. Camargo's high standards are normally higher than the client's standards. Camargo has a very strict rule so we have to follow these standards. It is very important.

Press Tribune: How would you describe the workforce here in Peru?

Mr. Wanderley: We were quiet surprised when we first came here, because the first time I had another impression. Before we came to Peru I thought that the Peruvians were not so well prepared, not so well educated, and we discovered good things: that they workers are educated and willing to learn, this is very important.

So when we started our first job we brought technology, other kind of technology, machinery, other way of doing things, they learned, they are willing to learn.

Having worked in the Amazon, in Brazil for a long time, we learned that the people are very good. These people don't have the same problems that the people in the big cities. They didn't have education and when you have a guy that doesn't have education it doesn't mean that he cannot be educated. Camargo is very well respected in Brazil because we give education to everyone who work for us. And when you give education for the people everybody learns. It is not just Brazilian, it is not only Peruvian, it is everybody. We know that Latinamerica is a poor region because of the system and government we had but any Latin-American that can have education can be a good worker like in any other country in the world.