Ferrogrão should take at least 10 years, says government – 06/15/2023 – Market

Ferrogrão, a railroad designed to connect the port of Miritituba, in Pará, to the municipality of Sinop, in Mato Grosso, should take at least ten years to complete, said this Thursday (15) the executive secretary of the Ministry of Transport , George Santoro, who pointed out that the studies for the work are outdated.

Studies for the construction of the railroad, identified as crucial for the transport of agricultural production from the Midwest to the ports of the North Region, had been suspended by decision of the Federal Supreme Court and only at the beginning of this month did Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF , complied with the request of the Advocacy-General of the Union (AGU) and authorized the resumption of the construction processes of Ferrogrão.

“We reversed (the STF decision) in order to update the studies. The studies are very outdated. Financially they are worth 13 billion (reais), if we only update monetarily, it already goes to almost 30 billion. You have to go back to the field to check if the geological and environmental conditions remain, it seems that they are not the same as ten years ago”, said Santoro in a press conference to foreign correspondents in São Paulo.

“Until we manage to update the studies, put this public notice out, manage to resolve the environmental obstacles and this project is ready, let’s put it there, in a very optimistic hypothesis, ten years”, he said.

Meanwhile, said the secretary, the government will work to improve the conditions of the BR-163, which also passes through the region and is also relevant for the flow of agricultural production.

The highway is part of a series of other roads whose concession contracts the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva intends to change and, for that, awaits a judgment by the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União), scheduled for June 21st.

passenger trains

In the interview, Santoro also stated that he does not see the possibility in the short term of building railroads for passenger trains in Brazil, due to the current fiscal restrictions of the federal government.

“Passenger trains all over the world have a government subsidy. There is no country in the world that does not have a subsidy, every government contributes part of the resources because they are very expensive projects. We will need to have more fiscal space, investment, to being able to finance, subsidize, these passenger projects”, he said.

“For the time being, I cannot envision that it is possible in the short term for us to have a passenger project in Brazil.”

At the same time, he said that the Ministry of Transport is working on drawing up a policy for the sector and that smaller, more economically viable projects may be the first in line.

“We are going to publish a public policy soon for us to build this possibility in the future. We are already sending a decree to the President of the Republic building the passenger transport policy”, said the secretary.

“We believe that they will have economically viable stretches, which may not need much subsidy. I think we have to start small so that later we can build the possibility of having bigger projects.”