By Michael Elkins
In February, the Brazilian government opened negotiations with electric automaker BYD (OTC:BYDDY) in the hopes of reopening a factory that belonged to Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) in Camacari. Ford ended activities at the Camacari industrial complex in January 2021 following 20 years of operations.
However, as talks have stalled, a story from Reuters, citing unnamed sources, reports Thursday that Brazilian officials are offering fresh incentives to BYD, including land to build an electric car plant in Bahia.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with executives from BYD while visiting China, where he will meet with President Xi Jinping on Friday.
The sources said the Chinese firm would keep negotiating with Ford to take over the Bahia factory and inherit state tax incentives for the complex. Nonetheless, Brazilian officials on Thursday discussed an alternative site in Bahia where BYD could build a factory from scratch if the talks with Ford prove unsuccessful.
A person close to BYD said in March that documents for the final signing of the agreement had been sent to Ford executives in the U.S., and that there were "no obstacles" to the negotiations at that time.
BYD also made it clear they would have no issue setting up a new plant, the sources said.
"They pointed out that sometimes adapting a site is more time consuming than doing it from scratch," said one of the Brazilian attendees.
Shares of F are down 0.83% in mid-day trading on Thursday.