No investment in Brazilian ports until 2015

This situation is not expected to change until 2015 at the earliest, despite the fact that changes to legislation governing ports introduced last year were designed to ensure that future investment is made as quickly as possible.

Mr Manteli points out that the initial batch of tenders – for ports in Pará state and at Santos – had to be looked at by the Audit Court (TCU). While TCU has now accepted the technical, economic and environmental feasibility studies put together by consultants Brazilian Structural Projects, it has made 19 recommendations for changes to the bidding documents. Once these have been accepted by the Ports Secretariat (SEP), the first batch of tenders, worth an estimated $2.4bn, can be issued.

A second batch of tenders – at ports in São Sebastião, Paranaguá and Salvador – has been cancelled and the whole process has to be started from scratch. This, Mr Manteli puts down to lack of legal certainty, noting that no investor would put their money into a scheme where this was lacking.