Word: manzanos
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...Indeed, some of Venezuela's poor hit the streets this week for student-led protests rather than pro-Chavez rallies. Luis Escobar grew up in Plan de Manzano, a poor clutter of homes that hang precariously from a hill along an old highway connecting Caracas with the Caribbean coast. He studies telecommunications at UNEFA, a university run by the Armed Forces that often drapes an enormous poster of Chavez over its main building. "People say UNEFA is 100% chavista, but that's not the reality," Escobar said. He attended the opposition's final march on Thursday sporting a university shirt...
...there protection in design capability, which has long been an Italian strength. Chairs are easily copied. Manzano's entrepreneurs complain that Chinese manufacturers simply steal what they find in catalogs and on websites. The Italians insist they still have an edge in quality--especially with chairs made out of fine wood or upholstered in top-quality leather-- and in their ability to tailor production to customers like the hotel industry. But even there the Chinese are muscling...
...Calligaris-inspired: he is trying to create his own brand and a sales network with fellow entrepreneurs. Two of the four firms he hoped to team with have since dropped out, but Piani doesn't need to look very far to see that he needs to do something. The Manzano district as a whole is working on a strategy that might help all the chair manufacturers: creating a certified hallmark analogous to the one used by the ham producers of San Daniele, 12 miles away, who make a famous prosciutto. To qualify, chairs would have to be made locally...
...even as they talk about focusing on Italian manufacturing heritage, officials for the bigger firms are dealing with reality and shifting production out of the Manzano district. Luigi Cozzi, for example, has relocated his wood treatment to Romania, where his firm, Idealsedia, now has 300 workers--50 more than it has in Italy. Such cost-cutting moves are a matter of survival. Natuzzi, a major Italian sofamaker headquartered in Santeramo, still makes high-end products in Italy. But less expensive sofas aimed at price-conscious North American consumers are wholly made at a factory Natuzzi operates in Shanghai. The company...
That's a difficult lesson for Manzano to comprehend. A company called Sibau just down the road from Piani's factory collapsed last May, with the loss of 50 jobs. "They stayed still too long," Piani laments. "They thought nobody could make chairs the way they...