Minister of Infrastructure hopes to have a new framework for railroads and cabotage by the end of the year

During Expert XP, the Minister of Infrastructure, Tarcísio de Freitas, once again suggested creating a provisional measure (MP) as a way to create the legal framework for railways. The matter is the subject of a bill in the Senate presented by Senator José Serra (PSDB-SP) in 2018, but it has stopped at the House. The forecast is that it will be approved in the coming months and will be analyzed by the Chamber.

According to Freitas, the expectation is to have the new milestone for railways and also for cabotage, a project that became known as BR do Mar, by the end of the year. “BR do Mar will constitute a great advance in Brazilian cabotage, it really will be an incentive. This is not a guess, we have this perception due to the conversations we have with the market. There are new entrants interested in operating cabotage, segments of the industry that currently do not work in cabotage and intend to work”, said Tarcísio Freitas, in a debate last week in the Senate.

With the project, it will be possible to encourage competition, create routes, and reduce costs. Among other goals, MInfra intends to increase the volume of containers transported per year from 1.2 million TEU in 2019 to 2 million TEU in 2022, in addition to increasing the capacity of the maritime fleet dedicated to cabotage by 40% over the next three years, excluding vessels dedicated to the transport of oil and oil products.

According to Tarcísio, the MP for the railroads would provide legal certainty for the projects that are already underway on a state level. The approval by Congress of the new railway operation regime in Brazil has the potential to unlock projects and launch at least R$ 25 billion in investments. These would be railway stretches built from scratch by companies interested in connecting new destinations and lowering the cost of cargo transportation.

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