11/12/2008 14h45
BNDES lists US$ 30 billion in irreversible projects
Valor Econômico - 11/12/2008
BNDES, meeting the requests of the Federal Government, made a list of investment projects in key sectors of the economy that, according to Nelson Siffert, head of the Electric Energy Department of the bank, are considered "irreversible" and that will maintain the country in development for the next three years. Most of the projects belongs to the infrastructure and basic inputs areas and are in the stage of construction, with forecast to start-up of operations between 2009 and 2011. Only in the electric sector, 24 plants are in the list, all of them of the Program of Acceleration Growth (PAC), totaling investments of R$ 25.9 billion (US$ 12 million), from which R$ 16.8 billion (US$ 7.8 billion) is financed by the BNDES, including the Santo Antonio plant, in the Madeira River. Jirau did not enter this list because the works have not started due to the lack of the installation license. If it were added to the list, the total amount of investments in hydroelectric plants would reach R$ 35.9 billion (US$ 16.7 billion), with generation forecast of 11,536 megawatts (MW). The survey of the department of the basic inputs area of mining and metallurgy, commanded by Paulo Sérgio Moreira da Fonseca, sent the Planning Ministry a list of eight metallurgical projects considered "firm" and "anticlyclic", which sum investments of R$ 28.8 billion (US$ 13.4 billion). The list includes three new metallurgies that should be ready until 2011 and five projects of expansion of the CSN, Gerdau, and Usiminas companies.
