Improvement in logistics is bet of rural sector
DCI
On the eve of planning the next harvest and in the logistics peak of the current, representatives of both the agribusiness and the logistics sector believe that Brazil has gained some extra time to improve its transport capacity. With eyes aiming at it, the Federal Government wants to increase to 1% the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the equivalent to R$ 29 billion (US$ 14.5 billion), the resources intended for logistics and infrastructure projects in 2009. The amount represents twice the financial volume available to the sector last year. The statement was made by Marcelo Perrupato, Secretary for Transportation National Policy (PLNT, in Portuguese), of the Ministry of Transport.
In the project of the Government, four segments of waterways are considered a priority: Teles-Pires-Tapajós, Araguaia-Tocantins, Rio Parnaíba and Tietê-Paraná. The PLNT foresees a reduction of the road modal from 58% to 28% in view of the increase of the participation of the rail modal from 25% to 35% and from the water modal from 16% to 29%, in addition to more investments in pipelines for the transport of ethanol. The purpose is to build 10 thousand km of railroads all over the Country until 2023.
The companies of the sector lose investments in character of emergency. A scenario outlined by Hamburg Süd for 2012 shows it would be necessary an additional capacity of 5.4 million square meters for the most critical ports. That is due to the fact that the trade balance of the agribusiness has increased 142%, whereas the retro areas have increased 49%, which has led to a situation of long waits for the mooring of ships, low loading and unloading productivity and partial use of the capacity of the ships. "The wait of those ships is expensive for the client. In 2008, ships waited 20,697 hours in Brazil and there were 240 cancelled stopovers, which is equivalent to 10% of the total", said Julian Roger C. Thomas, managing director of Aliança Navegação e Logística - Hamburg Süd, company that withholds 20% of the market share of the Brazilian market for the world. The officer estimates Brazil lost nearly US$ 300 million in 2008 due to the national logistics deficiency. Only Hamburg Süd had, in 2008, an additional cost of US$ 62 million. Antônio Carlos Rodrigues Branco, director of Ports and Services of Bunge Alimentos, said that the solution for the bottlenecks would be the implementation of 70 projects capable of reducing the Brazilian logistics cost by US$ 20.5 billion a year.