C3 Parana
Parana is one of the more
industrialized areas of Brazil. There is, as is mostly the case in
Brazil, a lot of poor people working in an economy
that is not capable to create a sustainable development for everybody.
In Parana a Local Exchange Circuit is created to address the housing
problem, both for the benefit for the homeless as for the civil
construction sector that has a problem of unused capacity. The
project C3 Parana is the result of a strong partnership with the
business community. This project is the perfect paragon of
the potential of the C3 methodology to boost the local
economy whilst addressing pressing social needs at the same time. In
this particular local context the social need is a shortage of housing.
Objective
The objective of the project is to raise and maximise the economic and commercial development of the construction sector. The Chamber of Industry, the main actor in this C3, has identified the construction sector as the most suitable for the operation of a trade network with an internal currency and credit system. This in order to address some internal weaknesses: the scarcity of (own resources) by the firms of the construction sector, the restricted access to expensive bank credit and the high level of default of the clients of the firms, jeopardising their financial stability. At the same time this sector already has several kinds of barter-transactions taking place, thus the idea of a Local Exchange Circuit is not an alien one, but rather an unexpected bonus! Making available a financial technology, which can increase the efficiency of finance and mutual transactions in the sector could help to resolve its main weaknesses.
Results
More than 100 companies are member of the network and this number is still growing. The C3-network is practically operational, a pilot phase has started in January 2007.
Partners
Chamber of Industry of Parana
SINDUSCON-PR: Union of the Civil Construction Industry of Parana
IPD: Institute of Development for Parana
The assurance branch is also involved in the
projects. They are working on contracts that allows collective
assurance of internal credit at very low costs. Since Brazilian
interest rates are immense, cheap credit is the key for success.
More info
For more info, please visit the website (in Portugese) of this project.
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