The Minister of Transport, Renan Filho, inaugurated this Tuesday (21) a series of meetings of members of the Senate’s Infrastructure (CI) and Regional Development (CDR) commissions with ministers from related portfolios.
To the senators, in addition to talking about the priorities of the Ministry of Transport, the minister again highlighted that the analysis of the new fiscal framework by the National Congress, scheduled for the coming weeks, should take into account the need for government investment, especially in infrastructure road. According to Renan Filho, today it is more expensive to transport cargo from the farm to a port than to transport it from the port to China or Europe.
Citing a survey carried out by the National Transport Confederation (CNT), Renan Filho said that 66% of the federal and state road network is in a fair, bad or very bad situation.
He undertook to complete the stretches under these conditions in up to two years, but stressed the need for funds. “If we go back to a pre-PEC capacity [da transição]we will not be able to stop the deterioration of our transport infrastructure”, he warned.
The minister also said that despite being in a bad state, 96% of the highways have a maintenance contract, but do not have the resources for this purpose. The portfolio’s budget for this year, inherited from the Bolsonaro government, was R$ 5 billion, against R$ 45 billion in 2012. “It’s a ninth!”, he criticized.
With the approval of the transition PEC, the budget for 2023 rose to BRL 21 billion, the amount is similar to that of 2020.
Renan Filho compared investments in highways made in 2022 by Brazil and Uruguay. In the minister’s evaluation, although both invested around US$ 1 billion each, if the comparison considers the contributions per inhabitant, the neighboring country invested 50 times more. “It is not possible for Brazil to invest less than Uruguay”, he assessed.
In order for Brazil to gain the trust of investors, the Minister of Transport said that the portfolio will establish, based on the 2035 National Logistics Plan (PNL), projects for future execution. The expectation is that the technical document with a set of data, information and future scenarios will strategically assist in discussions and in the decision-making process.
“Parliament needs to discuss whether it will have more resources. Let’s clearly choose the projects [prioritários] to ensure quality and, on the other hand, more resources for these projects to avoid it going to unimportant things. This is a mechanism that calms the market’s nerves, knowing what will be done with the available resources.”
100 days
As a goal for the 100 days of the Lula government, which will be completed in early April, Renan Filho highlighted that efforts will be concentrated on “structuring works”. According to him, this is a diverse set of attention points that can be summarized in “recovering highways, expanding rail transport and saving lives”.
In the short term, there is also the intention of preparing the country to sell the next grain harvest and attract private capital with a robust portfolio of assets.
In the very short term, the Ministry of Transport will prioritize the main logistical corridors in the country, through which the record harvest that the country will now have will be transported.
“These are highways that cross several states, from North to South, and drive regional development,” he said.
The minister stated that R$ 1.5 billion will be invested in the maintenance of the highways that connect the main corridors to these ports.
“We still have a focus on maintaining the South-Southeast corridor, which will have a lot of trucks moving and will demand another R$ 1.2 billion. had been falling since 2014”.
Railways
To the senators, Renan Filho also defended that the government has the strength to invest in railroads so that the effective expansion of the network occurs more quickly.
Even recognizing that, in this sector, projects demand time for studies and works, the portfolio is studying how to improve the regulatory framework to help unlock private investment in the sector.
For the minister, there is no more time to lose: “this delay costs the country money. We need to balance our transport matrix, modernize our logistics as soon as possible, reduce costs and increase the competitiveness of our agribusiness in the international market”.
