Reports

SHOW REPORT

São Paulo– This year’s Paving Expo, held Sept. 23–25 at São Paulo’s Distrito Anhembi, marked another record edition for Latin America’s largest event dedicated to paving, road construction, and infrastructure technologies.

With all exhibition space sold out, more than 300 companies showcased their solutions to an audience expected to surpass 20,000 industry professionals, while the technical congress (Paving Conference) attracted some 4,000 delegates.

The numbers reflect the sector’s growing dynamism: nearly 9,600 visitors attended on the opening day alone, and projections indicated up to 30,000 participants over the full three-day program. Last year’s edition closed with 24,000 attendees, underscoring the show’s consistent expansion.

The PSR South America Perspective
At the show, Heitor Aguiari and Fábio Ferraresi, from the Power Systems Research (PSR) South America team, gathered insights directly from exhibitors and visitors.

Overall, the sentiment was that 2025 has been a slow year for the market, constrained by economic uncertainty and cautious investment decisions. Some stakeholders said that despite the growing presence of advanced technologies—such as digital paving controls, smart compaction systems, and next-generation asphalt plants—a key bottleneck for productivity gains is the capacitation of the workforce, as operators are often not fully trained to exploit these machines’ potential.

The construction industry grew by around 2.5% in 2025, underpinned by housing programs, renewable energy projects, and road concessions. Cement consumption, a proxy for construction activity, has risen steadily this year, showing increases above 5% compared to 2024 and even with the positive drivers, the investment in equipment was low due to conflicting political and economic signs.

Looking ahead, exhibitors expect 2026 to bring a temporary upswing, driven mainly by the elections and the traditional increase in public spending that accompanies them. Still, this is seen as temporary increase of sales rather than a structural, long-term driver, even with the demand of infrastructure investment in Brazil and the positive impact it would bring in the Equipment Supply Chain and overall economy, underlining both the opportunities and the fragility of demand cycles in Brazil’s paving and construction equipment markets.

Economy Analysts forecast an average annual growth rate of nearly 4% for construction between 2026 and 2029. Brazil’s government projects GDP expansion of 2.4% in 2026, slightly slower but still supportive of infrastructure demand. PSR

Fabio Ferraresi is Director, Business Development, South America, for Power Systems Research
Heitor Aguiari is Senior Analyst at Power Systems Research