Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Brazil may receive R$50 (US$12.5) billion in national and foreign investments in infrastructure in 2020.
The estimate is by the Minister of Infrastructure, Tarcísio Freitas, who attended, on September 25th, the inauguration of the new runway of the Santos Dumont Airport, in Rio de Janeiro.
He was in the United States recently, when he held several business meetings with foreign investors, mainly Americans and Canadians.
“We met with 68 funds, investment banks, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds. There were 21 meetings. If we add up the assets managed by the funds alone, it’s more than US$2 trillion. They are looking at everything: airports, ports, highways, Brazilian companies, Eletrobras. The hunger is enormous,” said Tarcísio.
According to the minister, there will be significant growth in the total volume of investments in the infrastructure sector, in general, for next year.
“This year we will close with R$11 billion in investment contracted in the auctions we made for port, highway, railroad and airport leases alone. If we add up the authorized investments in the port sector, it comes to R$30 billion in contracts signed this year. I think we can certainly reach next year the R$50 billion leased for all segments, [with investors] national and international,” the minister estimated.
Tarcísio also addressed the INFRAERO airport concession program, which is expected to be controlled by the private sector by 2022. The minister explained that there is a concession schedule and that it is being strictly followed.
“The next step is to auction 22 airports in October next year. There are three blocks: North 1, Center and South. From the moment we hold the auction, the structuring of the seventh and final round begins, with 19 more airports in three blocks, including Congonhas and Santos Dumont. The forecast is for late 2021, early 2022, and it won’t be long before that. By 2022, 41 of the INFRAERO’s network of airports will have been granted,” he said.
Next year, the minister said that the runway at Congonhas will undergo reforms. He stressed that the renovation of Santos Dumont was completed in record time.
In 28 days, the layer that covers the main runway was replaced, with a special porous tarmac, which drains rainwater almost immediately, ensuring greater adherence to landings and takeoffs, providing greater safety in operations.
The runway was delivered on Saturday, September 21st, for use by all airlines.