Brazil Builds Infrastructure to Handle Growing Trade

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 2/1/1998

U.S. trade with Latin America is booming, but in many Latin American countries, the transportation infrastructure is unable to meet the demands now being placed on it. One of the fastest growing economies in the region, Brazil, has always suffered severe port congestion and lacked reliable inland transportation services. Spectacular growth in exports and imports, however, has put the heat on the federal government to open up surface transportation to the private sector.

Ports and railroads are the first to benefit from this change in policy. Most port operations have been turned over to private operators. One of the biggest players in the port game, Rio de Janeiro-based Grupo Libra, has taken over Terminal 37 at Santos, Brazil's busiest port. Grupo Libra says its aim is to double productivity at that facility while reducing carriers' costs. Toward that end, the company has added six new fixed and mobile container cranes. This is expected to more than double container moves per hour, from 22 to 50.

Like the deep-water ports, inland waterways are benefiting from the federal government's emphasis on improving infrastructure. Cheap inland waterway transportation is vital to the development of Brazil's interior. The government believes that once waterways have been dredged, locks completed, and maintenance improved, shippers can save millions of dollars by using low-cost barge services. One of the country's biggest public works projects, the Tiete-Paraná waterway, is aimed at improving the efficiency and lowering the cost of waterborne freight transportation.

Railroads, too, are quickly making improvements. Several new Brazilian railroad companies have been formed, and some have invited outside experts to help bring them up to international standards. Of particular interest to exporters and importers is the success of regular intermodal service between the Port of Santos and the Campinas region of São Paulo State.

That service, the "Ferromar Express," has increased frequency to daily departures in each direction. By using rail to move containers inland before transferring to trucks, says General Manager Noslen Lopes Botelho, shippers have gained "much-improved inland transportation reliability, plus faster transit times to and from the Port of Santos, bypassing the many bottlenecks associated with the region's severely congested road system."