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March 2012 www.marinelink.com 45two years. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff later promised to defend Brazilian industry andstop developed countries' policies from causing the "cannibalization" of emerging markets. The move comes as Brazil's central bank also steps up direct intervention in the market, selling dollars and offering derivatives called reverse currency swaps to curb the real's near 9 percent surge against the US dollar this year. There are no dependable statistics for the shiprepair industry in Brazil, but the level of employ- ment in Brazilian shipyards has reached 59,000 workers and this figure is increasing monthly as new yards go online. In order for the maritime in- dustry to continue growing in Brazil it will be vital for a greater number of shipyards to work on efficient and high quality ship repairs and also for more of the specialized ship repair and conver- sion yards to be launched in the near future orBrazil may face another bottleneck with ship re- pairs as it already faces with local content poli- cies. According to Sinaval´s President, Ariovaldo Rocha, ? Brazilian shipyards are prepared for the challenge of building drill-ships, production rigs, support vessels, tankers and all the necessary equipment for this new Brazilian phase of petro- leum production in the deep layers of the seabed,known as the pre-salt.? The new Petrobras repair shipyard will convert at least four FPSOs. (Photo: Claudio Paschoa)With hundreds of rigs operating offshore, spe- cialized repair facilities are vital to the long- term viability of the current maritime and offshore energy run in Brazil. MR March 12 # 6 (41-49):MR Template 3/6/2012 12:41 PM Page 45