With a local market containing 196.7m consumers, a total area of 8.5 million km2 and the seventh largest economy in the world in terms of GDP, Brazil naturally attracts attention from investors from all sectors that are interested in the opportunities in this emerging country.<\/p>\n
Recently, it\u2019s the country\u2019s 8,500 km coastline and its ports – responsible for more than 95% of the country\u2019s international trade – that are attracting the attention of international players in the maritime and port logistics sector.<\/p>\n
The Brazilian port sector has significant importance for the country\u2019s economy. In 2014, Brazilian exports through its seaports reached 640.54m tons. The most commonly exported products were iron ore, containerised cargo, soybean and sugar. On the imports side, the most representative products were fertilisers, corn, containerised cargo and oil.<\/p>\n
Total cargo movement through both public ports and private terminals in 2014 reached 964m tons, an increase of 3.7% over the previous year.<\/p>\n
Among public ports, most of the cargo moves through Santos (94m tons); Itagua\u00ed (63.8m tons); Paranagu\u00e1 (41.3m tons) and Rio Grande (22.4m tons). Within the private terminals, the ranking is led by Ponta da Madeira (112.5m tons); Tubar\u00e3o (109.8m tons) and Almirante Barroso (53.11m tons).<\/p>\n
Despite its largest economy, Brazil\u2019s logistics infrastructure is far behind that of developed countries, according to The World Economic Forum – Global Competitiveness Report 2014-2015. The quality of the overall infrastructure is ranked No. 120, roads No. 122, rail No. 95, air transport No. 113 and port infrastructure No. 122. These numbers need to be quickly improved on if the country wants to retain its standing as one of the largest world economies in the future.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Planning drive<\/strong> <\/p>\n In an attempt to develop its port system to achieve an international level of excellence, the Brazilian Government introduced a pack of strategic planning initiatives and investments in 2012. The establishment of a National Ports Logistics Plan and the creation of a new law – Lei n\u00ba 12.815\/2013, known as the new port law \u2013 has led to some changes to the structure, regulation rules and institutional organisation of the country\u2019s port system.<\/p>\n The goal was to make port facilities more competitive and self-sustainable. The initiatives have imposed improvements in operations and port management and encouraged investments in the implementation of Vessel Traffic Management Information Systems, Port Community Systems, and business plans for port authorities aligned with the national port strategy.<\/p>\n But despite positive results from these initial improvements, there is still work to be done.<\/p>\n In terms of port infrastructure, a larger package of investments is on course through three channels: new port concessions, privately used terminal authorisations and early renewal of ongoing concession contracts. The National Development Bank and private banks are financing these investments with subsidised rates.<\/p>\n Regarding new port concessions, 159 areas in almost all Brazilian ports, organised in four groups, are to be leased. The Government expects to obtain approximately $7.2bn in investment for these new areas. In the Port of Santos, the largest port of Latin America, a total of 20 areas will be reorganised into nine terminals which will be available to lease. These leases will have a 25-year contract, which is renewable once.<\/p>\n Privately used terminal (TUPs) authorisations of approximately 58 terminals are expected to generate $9.87bn in new investment. The new port law removes the differentiation between own and third-party cargo and going forward private terminals will be allowed to handle third parties and proprietary cargo without limitation. New authorisations will only be granted for areas outside public port regions and could be granted for 25 years, which can be successively renewed.<\/p>\n Last, but also important, is the early renewal of ongoing concession contracts. Some concessions will an operation potential extending beyond 25 years are being renewed based on an investment plan that needs to be approved by the Government.<\/p>\n Jonas Mendes Constante is a consultant at ValenciaPort Foundation. He can be contacted on jonasmendes@gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jonas Mendes Constante examines the rising interest in Brazilian ports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-9275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-south-america"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9277,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9275\/revisions\/9277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9275"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=9275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}