BRASILIA: Brazilian Transport Minister Maurício Quintella has revealed that changes to legislation signed by President Michel Temer could attract up to $7.5 billion in the ports sector.
One of the most important measures was increasing concessions from 25 years to 35 years for contracts that were signed after 1993. These could even be extended up to 70 years.
However, since concessions awarded before 1993 did not go through an open tender process, these cannot be extended. The Minister said that what to do with these tenders remains under review.
The legislation will also allow private terminals to be extended by more than the current limit of 25%.
Separately, the Port of Maceió is to receive $24 million of investment.
Crucially, draft will be increased from 8.5 meters to 11 meters, allowing much larger vessels to call. At present, the port handles 2.5m tonnes, although once draft has been increased, this should rise to 3.5 million by 2020 and 4 million by 2030.
According to Quintella, the lack of draft that has made it difficult to attract investment.
A tender for the dredging will be issued shortly, with work to be completed by the end of the year.
