Indústria de Material Bélico do Brasil (Military Material Industry), or IMBEL for short, is a Brazilian state company, originally founded (privately) in 1934 by Jorge Coscarelli, before being taken over as a quango of the Ministry of Defense in 1975.
Its missions are: to cooperate in the planning and production of war material through the transfer of technology, encouraging the creation of new industries and provide financial and technical assistance to them; administer their own industrial and commercial park of war material, and promote development for other activities related to their goals.
History[]
IMBEL was founded on July 16, 1934, in the city of Piquete, São Paulo, Brazil as Industria Material Bélico do Brasil. The original factory was designated Fábrica de Canos e Sabres para Armas Portáteis (Arms Factory for Portable Cannons and Sabres) and later as Fabrica de Itajuba (FI) which directly involved the Brazilian Army in the production of military material.
On July 14, 1975 Law no. 6227 created Industria Material Bélico do Brasil - IMBEL, linked to the Ministry of the Army and with defined policies to promote based on private initiative, deployment and development of the war material industry of interest to the Army. Later the concept and policies were expanded to promote the military material industry in Brazil.
The military material industry has expanded and specialised to the point of receiving international recognition[citation needed], with research work, design and implementation done by the Itajubá plant.
It was initially involved in manufacturing Mauser rifles.