Local Productive Arrangements

10:26 24 de November de 2022 Por Daniel Oiticica

The program aims to contribute to updating and implementing a policy to support the development of Local Productive Arrangements (APL) in the State of Ceará, through the execution and monitoring of actions to develop them. The aim is to support business acceleration in the regions of Ceará and, consequently, regional development. The program is financially supported by the Development Agency of the State of Ceará (Adece) and is executed by the Institute for Technological Education (Centec).

The APL are formed by a set of economic, political and social players, located in a territory, developing specialized productive activities in a certain sector (primary, secondary or tertiary) and present formal and informal links when performing production, interaction, cooperation, learning and innovation activities.

In 2019, through Law No. 16,710, of 12/27/2018, the APL became the responsibility of the Secretariat for Economic Development and Labor of the State of Ceará (Sedet), through the Executive Secretariat for Labor and Entrepreneurship, in the sense of “promoting economic and productive inclusion in the urban and rural environment, prioritizing the APLs and the strengthening of associative forms, sustainability, security of autonomy, articulation with sectoral policies in the process of local economic development”, mainly, for the strengthening of APLs, preferably of micro and small companies.

In the period from June 2021 to August 2022, the first stage of the program was developed, with several actions: Identification and mapping of the Productive Clusters/APL of the State of Ceará, according to planning region; Conducting the diagnosis of four prioritized APLs in the Planning Regions of the State of Ceará of Cariri, Sertão de Sobral, Litoral Norte and Vale do Jaguaribe; Elaboration of a Preliminary Development Plan (PDP) for each of the prioritized APLs (as a pilot); Construction of interactive reports by means of the Power BI tool of the identified Productive Clusters/APL to subsidize the State Government; and holding fairs, seminars and mobilization meetings with the productive sector connected to the APLs. Initially, the Government of Ceará prioritized four APLs, according to their economic importance to the state, based on the following criteria:

1. APLs recognized by the Ministry of Economy.
2. Sectors prioritized in Ceará 2050 and Ceará Veloz.
3. Economic Innovation Clusters Program.
4. Degree of APL development that, in the medium term, will bring faster results to the activities that will be developed.

The prioritized APLs were Intimate Fashion of Frecheirinha, Furniture of Marco, Footwear of Cariri and Automotive Maintenance and Repair Services of Tabuleiro do Norte, for which diagnoses were conducted, aiming to characterize the APLs and their potential, highlighting the main agents and support organizations involved, the available infrastructure, the interaction and cooperation modalities, the learning mechanisms for the promotion of productive and innovative capacity, as well as the identification of problems and challenges for its sustainability and competitiveness, so that its results serve as a guide for public policy actions.

How to participate?
To register as an APL or Cluster, you must enter the Adece site and fill out the available form. An analysis of the information and an on-site visit will be made to define whether or not it is an APL.

The criteria for identifying APLs were defined to consider the specific characteristics of an APL. Among them, it is important that the locality has at least five establishments and 50 formal or informal employees in the specific activity concentrated locally, thus indicating signs of the existence of a local productive arrangement.

In addition, other criteria are observed, such as: micro, small and even medium-sized producers/establishments, this group of producers need to represent economic, technological, social and symbolic importance for the locality; existence of forms of cooperation produced by local social capital; presence of actions coordinated by certain genuine types of institutions (leaderships, producer associations, etc.), among others

Power BI Tool
A platform was also built, using the Power BI tool, to facilitate access to information for managers in a more summarized and interactive way. This tool contains economic and social indicators, as well as other variables on these clusters and APL, which can be accessed by anyone interested in the subject, especially for public managers, for guidance in decision-making on public policies. For each APL identified and mapped, a technical sheet was elaborated, containing the number of producers, jobs generated, specialization, market, cooperation, and governance, among other information – in addition to the holding of seminars and fairs for APL producers’ exposure and sales. The BI can be accessed here.

Holding events
As a form of support, three events were held. The first event, First Impulses Ceará Seminar: Strengthening Local Productive Arrangements, took place online, on August 31, 2021, and had 584 registered people and an average of 186 people participating. The event aimed to present the program proposal to the public: APL entrepreneurs/producers, input suppliers and buyers, political agents, public body representatives, financial institutions representatives, unions and associations involved in APLs, professors and university students and others interested in the Local Productive Arrangements theme.

The second event took place between April 28th and 29th, 2022. The Impulsiona CE – Cariri Fair took place in a fair and hybrid format (in person and online), in the Cariri Region. The program included exhibitions and sales of products from the Local Productive Arrangements identified, besides a cycle of lectures that fostered the exchange of experiences and a series of presentations on the results obtained by the program. It counted on a public of 256 participants (presential and online) and about 1300 visualizations in a virtual way, from the transmission of the event by Centec’s Channel.

The third event, the II Seminar Strengthening Local Productive Arrangements, took place virtually, and counted on 267 registered participants, with an average participation of 165 people, and the presence of development secretaries, representatives of APL from Mauriti, Salitre, Juazeiro do Norte, Crateús, and Frecheirinha, as well as external speakers, Centec staff, and Adece/Sedet staff.

The main objective of the event was to present the results and reports of the work promoted by Adece, whose themes were: Macro-Sectorial diagnosis of the 14 Planning Regions of the State of Ceará; PDP of APL of Automotive Maintenance and Repair Services (Tabuleiro do Norte), Footwear of Cariri (Juazeiro do Norte, Crato and Barbalha), Furniture (Marco) and Intimate Fashion Manufacturing (Frecheirinha); tools for dissemination of APL – Power BI and the Input-Output Matrix.

In August 2022, a new amendment was made, seeking to give continuity and support to the theme, whose expected results are:

1. Update/maintenance of the Interactive reports (Power BI tool) built in the first stage of the project, as well as the creation of new reports using this tool by region and municipalities.
2. Development of two strategic action plans for two of the APLs selected among those that were identified and mapped in the Planning Regions of the State of Ceará.
3. Realization of two events to mobilize the productive sector connected to APL
4. Carrying out consultancies in strategic areas according to the demands observed in the identification and mapping of the APLs carried out in the first stage.

Program result
1. Identification and mapping of the Productive Clusters/APL of the state of Ceará, according to the planning region.

2. Realization of the diagnosis of four APL prioritized in four Planning Regions of the State of Ceará (Cariri, Sertão de Sobral, Litoral Norte and Vale do Jaguaribe).

3. Elaboration of a Preliminary Development Plan for each of the prioritized APLs (as a pilot).

4. The construction of interactive reports using the Power BI tool of the identified Clusters/APLs to subsidize the State Government and, mainly, the City Halls where these clusters are located.

5. Holding events (fairs and seminars) and mobilization meetings with the productive sector connected to APL.

6. The construction of Power BI, which consolidates the development of 35 technical sheets of the identified APLs, being of great importance for the dissemination of the APLs. Through Power BI it is possible to visualize the history of APLs, the number of producers, governance, location of APL, description of the network connection, highlighting the consumer market for the final products and the origin of raw materials and inputs, as well as the SWOT analysis of each of the APLs.

Resources invested
1st Stage: R$ 1,934,584.20
2nd Stage: R$ 1,790,358.00
Total: R$ 3,724,942.00.

Find out here about the APL Preliminary Development Plans and their Diagnoses.