A Nexa Resources e o Circuito Espacial Produtivo do Zinco em Juiz de Fora - Minas Gerais

Abstract

After the intense metal extraction in the central area of Minas Gerais during the XVIII century, and afterward, the decline of the activity, coffee growth became the Brazilian main economic activity with an accentuated production in Minas Gerais. Later, at the beginning of the XX century, industrialization became the main economic agent in Minas Gerais and started to be part of the spatial configuration of Juiz de Fora, located in the Forest Zone of Minas Gerais. Thus, the locality, until the 1930s, was appointed as the city with the greatest industrial relevance of Minas Gerais. In the 1970s, with the implementation of the II National Development Plan (PND), was recommended by the federal sphere, the decentralization of the basic industrial activities of the metropolitan centers. In 1980, an industrial plant managed by Companhia Paraibuna de Metais (CPM) was inaugurated, based on the production of non-ferrous metals, such as zinc. In 1996, Companhia Paraibuna de Metais (CPM) was sold to the Paranapanema Group. In 2002, the project was acquired by the Votorantim Group and started to be operated by Votorantim Metais S.A (VMZ). In 2017, the Votorantim Group became a shareholder of Milpo, a Peruvian mining company, and, as a market strategy, Votorantim Metais S.A (VMZ) and Milpo were renamed Nexa Resources. In this scope, we intend to understand the conditions that allowed the implementation of corporate space in Juiz de Fora in the Forest Zone of Minas Gerais, represented today by the multinational Nexa Resources. In addition, it is planned to understand how the company, Through its industrial activities, entered the spatial circuit of production, inserting the locality in a broad spatial relationship that goes from the context local to global, materialized by the demand for inputs, until the arrival of the product to the final consumer. Finally, it intends to expose the current economic relations between the operation of the multinational with Juiz de Fora, exposing the indicators of income and employment and the vision of social agents interconnected to Nexa Resources.