Construction equipment manufacturer JCB has secured an order for over 1,000 of its machines from the Brazilian Government – the biggest in its history.
The contract represents one of the largest single deals in JCB’s sixty five year history and will play a major part in Brazilian ambitions to transform national road infrastructure.
The first 114 of the 1,016 backhoes have now been delivered and the keys to one of the first machines handed over by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to Cleri Camilotti, the Mayor of the city of Três Passos from the State of Rio Grande do Sul.
The remaining equipment will all be manufactured at JCB’s factory in Sao Paulo, Brazil by the end of June this year.
The machines will be used in over1,000 municipalities across the country. They will be deployed to improve and open up thousands of miles of secondary roads in communities heavily dependent on farming, ensuring food gets to its final market much quicker.
Around 400,000 of Brazil’s farms are family run enterprises in remote locations where the road network needs to be upgraded. The purchase of the JCB machines is part of a major federal government growth initiative.
Carlos Hernandez, managing director of JCB Brazil, said: “These JCB machines will play a big role in improving the infrastructure nationwide and ultimately ensure produce from family farms gets to its destination quickly”.
Under the terms of the tender, JCB Brazil is also providing in-depth training on the machines for operators across the country, which has a population of more than 180 million people.
