Country has to invest US$ 502.8 billion in infrastructure, study affirms
Valor Econômico
Driven by the demands resulting from the FIFA World Cup, Brazil will need nearly R$ 804.5 billion (US$ 502.8 billion) in infrastructure works in the next five years. The study made by the Brazilian Association of the Infrastructure and Capital Goods Industries (Abdib) was released yesterday in a seminar that presented the business opportunities for executives of the private initiative.
The demands identified by the survey in the next five years are in the areas of oil and gas (R$ 376.5 billion/US$ 235.3 billion), electricity (R$ 141.5 billion/US$ 88.4 billion), transportation and logistics (R$ 120.5 billion/US$ 75.3 billion), telecommunications (R$ 98.5 billion/US$ 61.6 billion) and sanitation (R$ 67.5 billion/US$ 42.2 billion). The needs are added up to the investment related to the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Only on the host cities, the expectation of the Executive Vice President of the Abdib, Ralph Lima Terra, is that the potential of investments gets to R$ 116.8 billion (US$ 73 billion) in the next two years.
In São Paulo, city that may attract investment in infrastructure due to the Cup, according to the institution, the business opportunities in the sector amount to R$ 34.5 billion (US$ 21.6 billion). São Paulo city is followed by Rio de Janeiro (R$ 18.9 billion/US$ 11.8 billion) and Belo Horizonte (R$ 11.3 billion/US$ 7.1 billion). The values include the spending on sports arenas, but the main demand will come from urban mobility. The estimate is that, until the end of 2013, 284 contracts related to it be closed in the host cities, generating R$ 67 billion (US$ 41.9 billion).
Even with the potential presented, João Bosco Vaz, extraordinary Secretary of Porto Alegre for the FIFA Cup and speaker of the event, complains of the little interest of the Brazilian companies in the works related to the competition. "To offer solar panels that could be used in the stadiums, companies have come from many places. Not from Brazil", he resents.
For the Executive of the Abdib, however, the environment is of optimism. "I went to London to see what is being prepared for the 2012 Olympics and came to the conclusion there is nothing there we cannot do", he says. For him, the Brazilian infrastructure companies lack management experience. For Richard Dubois, partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, to attract more investment the companies in the sector need legal and tax simplification in the country. He mentions a study made by his company: "2,600 hours are spent just to fill tax-related papers".