Two Brazilian port associations have come out against Brasilia’s plan to provide financial support for the deep water Rocha port project in Uruguay
Wilen Manteli and Sérgio Salomão, the presidents of ABTP and Abratec respectively, have jointly signed an «open letter» to national president Dilma Rouseff, the Home Office Minister Aloízio Mercadante Oliva and Special Ports Minister Antonio Silveira, urging a «rethink» of the plan to support the US$0.5B Rocha port project.
Jose Mujica, the president of Uruguay, has visited Brasilia several times to drum up support and has hailed the “financial support promised by Brazil” as a crucial plank for the Rocha scheme. The money will be chanelled via the Mercosur trade bloc’s Fund for Structural Convergence, and the conduit for that is the BNDES (Brazilian National Development Bank).
Rocha is located around 180 km northwest of Montevideo, just 100 km from the Brazilian border, and 300 km from Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul port. It could become a container transhipment hub for the River Plate and south of Brazil, although initially its main purpose is to support Uruguay’s increasing iron ore exports. Work could start before the end of this year and, according to Mujica, Rocha might even be open for business before the end of 2017.
The Brazilian port associations argue that Rocha will offer fierce competition to existing Brazilian operators and in particular the Wilson,Sons operation at Tecon Rio Grande. Manteli said that he was «shocked» that Brasilia would back a port that aims to take transhipment cargo away from the south of Brazil. “The BNDES should be investing in Brazilian facilities,» he said. «We sincerely hope that this letter will make the President think again about what she is doing.”
Salomão said it is «just not rational to give Brazilian financial resources to Uruguay to build competition for our Brazilian Abratec members. The new Port Law from last year [12.815/13] was supposed to create more competition within Brazil, not more competition for Brazil from outside. The money should go to Brazilian ports not Uruguayan ports.”
Both association presidents said they were also “very disappointed” that Rousseff’s government had already – via the BNDES – directed some US$682M towards Cuba’s newly opened hub port Mariela. This cost a total of USD957M, and was built by Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
FUENTE: http://www.worldcargonews.com
