EXUBERANT breasts exposed by beauty queens at Rio de Janeiro's Carnival or those stretching scanty bikini tops on Brazil's beaches often have little to do with nature's bounty.

　　In fact, a small plant on the ugly outskirts of Rio de Janeiro which produces transparent silicone implants stands behind most of the so-called turbo-charged cleavages in the tropical country famous for its cult of body beautiful.

　　Apart from endowing with silicone eight out of every 10 Brazilian women who choose breast enlargement surgery, Silimed, as the Brazilian manufacturer is called, exports 65 per cent of its output and is the world's No. 3 supplier of breast implants.

　　This summer, Silimed will open a new plant capable of producing 500,000 silicone packs annually, more than three times the size of its current capacity of 150,000 pieces, as it prepares an assault on the US market - the world's biggest.

　　Using certified raw materials imported from the US, Silimed makes breast implants along with facial, buttocks and even testicle implants of silicone gel.

　　"We are going to make a real go on the US market in 2004 or 2005. We can take 10 per cent of their market easily from the very start," said Silimed president Antoine Robert, a Frenchman who has lived in Brazil since 1974.

　　For now, however, Silimed's implants are undergoing clinical studies for the US market. A total of 1,000 patients will have to be studied over two years to gain the approval.

　　The United States consumes an estimated 350,000 implants a year, making up 60 per cent of global demand.

　　In Brazil, 25,000 to 27,000 women undergo breast augmentation annually. Silicone packs with Silimed's logo were used on some 19,000 women here last year.

　　"We don't expect to reach the full capacity the next day after launch, or even in two years. It's a long-term plan," Robert said, referring to the new plant's huge capacity. "Our current plant opened in 1990 and we only reached saturation now."

　　Keys to success

　　A goal of meeting virtually all global demand with its own capacity might sound ambitious, but Silimed knows about taking risks.

　　Robert and his associate Margaret Figueiredo, one of the founders and a director of Silimed, cranked up the venture 25 years ago even though the original authors of the project, asgroupsof French businessmen, had given up on the idea.

　　"Only one out of 10 operations here then was for breast enlargement, the rest was reductions, so the idea to sell locally did not work out," Figueiredo said. "But we stayed in the business for the sake of exports."

　　The popularity of Brazil's plastic surgery pioneer and trendsetter Dr Ivo Pitanguy has greatly contributed to the success of Silimed, she said.

　　"We now export to 50 countries and the local market started booming five years ago," said Figueiredo, who used to teach French and manage an art gallery before starting up Silimed.

　　"They say now that a Brazilian woman goes to the dentist as often as she goes to the plastic surgeon," she said. Silimed sells to Pitanguy and one of its models even bears his name.

　　Silimed has sailed through the storms of many Brazilian economic crises and managed to build its new US.5 million plant using the money from its own cash generation.

　　Sales were steady in the past two years after a 30 per cent boost in 2000 and have increased dramatically since Silimed's start-up days as breast enlargement operations quadrupled.

　　Citing cut-throat competition, Silimed would not reveal profits or even prices, saying only that its clients - plastic surgeons worldwide - charged between US and US,200 for packs ranging from modest 40 cubic centimetres (2.5 cubic inches) to buxom 600 (36.5 cubic inches).

　　Still, Silimed management says it is not afraid of competition, either here or in the future in the United States, home to the only two companies that are bigger than Silimed.

　　"Competing was hard at first as we had a multinational company as the only supplier to the Brazilian market. They are gone now," Figueiredo said. "It used to be very tough, but now it's different as our rivals are big but not multinational."

　　Silimed's other key to success is its increasingly popular, although expensive, silicone pack coated with a thin layer of polyurethane foam, which Robert says sharply reduces the chances of an implant and the breast deforming.

　　"Sometimes the breast with an implant starts looking like there's a billiard ball inside, but polyurethane helps to avoid it," Robert said, adding that Silimed was at the moment the only producer of that type of packs in the world.

　　Even though the preferred sizes are much smaller in Brazil than in the United States or Europe, packs of 195 cubic centimetres (12 cubic inches) are now in hot demand, up from 175 (10-1/2 cubic inches) popular two years ago, Figueiredo said.

　　Four-litre implant?

　　While bigger sizes are supplied to Europe, Silimed does not produce mega-packs popular in the porn industry. "One pretty skinny American woman with enormous silicone breasts asked us recently to make a new 4-litre (4-quart) implant for her, but we don't do such things," Figueiredo said categorically.

　　Still, Silimed has to fend off the ample media attention often given in Brazil to illegal producers of breast implants. Horrific stories abound, often about injections of industrial silicone in hairdressers' studios that cause gangrene and death.

　　Figueiredo, who eagerly cut through the hard, elastic coating of a pack to show its sticky transparent entrails, said she would not mind using her products on any part of her body other than her breasts, which she says are a fine size.

　　Commenting on annual fuss in the media about silicone shortages weeks ahead of Carnival jamborees, Figueiredo said it was little more than "disguised advertising" by importers.

　　"This is advertising and pretty dangerous one as nobody should be operated 15 days before Carnival if they want to dance and have fun. It takes three months to heal properly."

　　In fact, demand peaks towards year-end school vacations. "That's when moms can get some time off for an operation," she said.