Skip to main content

Brazil infrastructure projects being privatised?

The Brazilian Government is considering increasing the number of projects being privatised in a bid to boost investment in the country. Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has suggested increasing the number of federal roads included in the privatisation programme from four to 11. The economic team has presented 20 new road stretches to be considered for inclusion in the programme. These routes will be studied in order to determine which will generate the most interest from the private sector, with six or se
May 18, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
The Brazilian Government is considering increasing the number of projects being privatised in a bid to boost investment in the country. Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has suggested increasing the number of federal roads included in the privatisation programme from four to 11. The economic team has presented 20 new road stretches to be considered for inclusion in the programme. These routes will be studied in order to determine which will generate the most interest from the private sector, with six or seven to be chosen in total.

Roads in the new list include a stretch of the BR-364 between Rondonia and Mato Grosso, requiring investment of US$2.34 billion, and group of roads in Rio Grande do Sul requiring investment of $1.8 billion. The four roads already to be included in the programme require total investment of $6.12 billion. However, only the tender for the stretches between Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina and Parana is expected to be launched in 2015. The remaining three will follow in 2016. But the request to expand the privatisation programme, in addition to confirming the financing rules for the projects, has now led to the postponement of the programme being announced from May to possibly June 2015.

Additional funding sources are required for Brazil however, so that the country can continue with its much-needed infrastructure development. The Brazilian department of transport infrastructure, DNIT, has issued a report to the Auditors Court (TCU) which indicates that it faces imminent risk of being forced to suspend work on projects due to lack of funds. According to the document companies responsible for road maintenance and construction work across Brazil are currently owed over $568.94 million. The report also indicates that asphalt purchases have fallen 43% in 2015 in comparison with the first months of 2014. The report was issued in response to TCU preventing DNIT from adjusting the values paid to companies for asphalt purchases between November 2014 and January 2015, and claims that without this adjustment projects will need to be suspended. DNIT is already receiving communications from companies that have gone without payment for over 90 days which indicate that they no longer wish to continue services, putting road projects and road use at risk.

Related Content

  • Czech republic to fund infrastructure projects
    May 10, 2012
    The authorities in the Czech Republic are counting the cost of bungled planning for a series of infrastructure projects. The works will now have to source funds from the Czech Government following a ruling by the European Court of Auditors that the tender processes for the projects were flawed. The original plan was that the EU Operational Programme Transport would have paid for the works but instead, the Czech Government will finance the projects itself. However, only one project will have to be almost 100
  • India’s insurance claims for crashes are low
    October 24, 2016
    Analysis into traffic crashes in India has revealed that only around half of the country’s road deaths in 2015/2016 resulted in insurance claims. There were around 146,000 road fatalities in India during this period. The problem has been revealed by India’s Supreme Court. There are suggestions that the families of many of the road death victims do not know that they are entitled to compensation. The Supreme Court has pointed out that the four major sector insurers holding around 90% of the country’s busines
  • Bolivia boosts road building budget
    September 22, 2014
    An investment of nearly US$510 million is being planned in Bolivia for road building works. The country’s state-run road company, Administradora Boliviana de Carreteras (ABC), has plans in hand for a total of 32 road maintenance and construction projects in Santa Cruz department. In all these will stretch for some 5,773km. Of this, $291 million will be spent on 276km of new roads, including the Saavedra-Chane and Circunvalacion Mineros, Hardeman-Colonia Pairi and Rio Uruguaito-Santa Rosa de la Roca-San Igna
  • Machine visibility in focus from EU Commission
    November 9, 2015
    All round visibility from the operator’s seat of a construction machine is a topic in focus at the EU Commission. This has been a topic of concern for the construction machinery sector ever since the EU Commission released a warning relating to the standard. This standard has provisions covering visibility requirements for earth-moving machinery. A position paper is intended to help clarify the situation.