investment responsibility is private, says minister

An old project cherished by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and former President Dilma Rousseff (PT), the construction of the bullet train between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, if considered viable, will be the responsibility of the private sector, according to the Minister of Transport, Renan Filho.

“The bullet train is an authorization. I have no responsibility to do it, the private sector is responsible. If they go to the Arab investment fund and want to put money in, they will do it,” said the minister, in an interview with ” Folha de S.Paulo”.

Despite highlighting that international experiences show that the construction of high-speed trains is not achieved solely through private investment, the minister recognizes that the investment, estimated at R$50 billion, “has no connection with the fiscal reality of the moment”.

Renan Filho compared this cost to the Ministry of Transport’s total investment budget for this year: R$16 billion, just under a third of the resources needed to invest in the bullet train.

The minister’s stance represents a change in relation to August last year, when he indicated that the work could count on federal financial support, if environmental viability was proven and if the company authorized to carry out the project, TAV Brasil, needed resources.

It is also a return to the original position, explained at the beginning of last year, when Renan Filho stated that there would be no public contribution, as it was a private project.

The idea of ​​building a bullet train has existed since 2007

The idea of ​​building a bullet train between the two largest Brazilian cities has existed since 2007, targeting the 2014 World Cup. The notice was launched in July 2010, but did not attract interest. A new attempt was made during the Dilma government, but it did not go ahead for reasons of technical and financial feasibility.

The most recent project, authorized by the National Land Transport Agency (ANTT) in March 2023, proposes the construction of 378 kilometers of railway between the North Zone of São Paulo (neighborhood of Pirituba) and the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro (neighborhood of Santa Cruz), connected to the center of both cities by branch lines or taking advantage of existing railways.

Four stations are planned: São Paulo, São José dos Campos, Volta Redonda and Rio de Janeiro. The route would be completed in an hour and a half.

In addition to the financial challenges, the project faces engineering obstacles, as, due to the train’s estimated speed of 350 km/h, the route would need to be straight or with gentle curves, requiring the construction of tunnels and viaducts to cross the Serra do Mar .

Other issues are environmental and land tenure: the project envisages crossing areas of the Atlantic Forest and water sources, which would require an extensive environmental licensing and negotiation process for the expropriation of these areas.

A critical point of the TAV Brasil project is that the stations in Rio and São Paulo would be built in points far from the centers of the two cities.

Dilma government even created a state-owned company for the bullet train

The first bullet train project included a line connecting Campinas to Rio de Janeiro, passing through three important Brazilian airports – Viracopos, Guarulhos and Galeão. Part of the route through the capital of São Paulo would be underground, and at least nine stations would be built.

The concession notice was launched in July 2010, with an auction scheduled for December 16 of the same year. The proposal was budgeted at R$33.1 billion (or R$72.1 billion, in values ​​corrected by the IPCA).

The BNDES would finance up to R$ 19.9 billion (R$ 43.3 in updated values), and the costs of expropriation and release of previous environmental licenses, estimated at R$ 3.4 billion (R$ 7.3 billion in current values). corrected) would be the responsibility of the federal government.

Dilma even created a state-owned company for the bullet train, the High Speed ​​Rail Transport Company (Etav), which was later renamed the Planning and Logistics Company (EPL) and, in 2022, merged with Valec to form Infra SA, responsible for planning and structuring projects for the transport sector. The merger occurred due to the common characteristics of these state-owned companies, both dependent on resources from the Budget and with the Union as the only partner.