Autopart-manufacturing company based in Santa Fe exporting during the pandemic

SANTA FE

VMG is a company from the Argentine province of Santa Fe, which manufactures water and oil pumps for cars, trucks, and tractors. The company is located at the industrial park in the city of Rafaela and serves the automotive terminals—John Deere, CNHi, Cummins—and the domestic and foreign markets by supplying the aftermarket. Despite the pandemic, it has maintained its production and expects to achieve its «former normality» levels sometime during September.

«Although the VMG plant had to shut down in April, during May and July we recovered our activity by 85%, and next month we will be working just as we did before the pandemic. VMG Equipo Original has never stopped its production because, at present, our main customer is John Deere Mexico. We manufacture front engine boxes along with water pumps for the engines of tractors and harvesters,» explained Ricardo Bongiovanni, Financial Manager.

VMG was founded by the Chiapero family in 1976 and, in recent years, it has grown to such an extent that its peer company was created: VMG Equipo Original. The former serves the demand of the aftermarket, and the latter, the demand of the automobile companies.

To sustain their production, they have restructured their work shifts and applied preventive measures, such as the use of face masks, personal distancing, and temperature controls. On the financial side, they have resorted to credit lines to pay salaries and to manufacture the pumps that are exported to Mexico.

“BICE has always been there for us, with lines of investment, pre-financing of exports and now with working capital. Our main objective is to reach 100% of our production capacity soon and to recover the export destinations we had before the sanitary emergency, including Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and the United States,” concluded Bongiovanni.