Lula unveils pivotal north-south railroad link in Brazil’s Goiás state

Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is set to inaugurate the strategic North-South Railroad on Friday, June 16.

The new rail link will connect the ports of Itaqui in Maranhão and Santos in São Paulo.

The President will attend an event at the Rumo terminal in Rio Verde (GO), the company responsible for the project.

After visiting the terminal at 11:20 am, he will attend the inauguration ceremony at noon.

Lula commented on the considerable challenges in developing a railroad of this size, from licensing to bidding issues.

“In my government and in Dilma’s [Rousseff’s] government, we completed 90% of this highway.

President Sarney, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President Temer, and the current concessionaire of this road each contributed 5%,” he stated in a radio interview.

However, he omitted the tenure of Presidents Fernando Collor de Mello (1990-1992), Itamar Franco (1992-1995), and Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).

The North-South Railroad, spanning 2,257 kilometers, passes through key commodity production areas, including those for soy, corn, and cotton.

This crucial infrastructure will expedite the flow of these goods to ports for exportation, bolstering the competitiveness of Goiás, Mato Grosso, and Minas Gerais by creating this logistical corridor.

The logistics operator, Rumo, has managed the Southern stretch of the railroad, spanning 1,537 kilometers, since 2019.

Over the past four years, the company has invested R$4 billion (US$800 million) in constructing three new terminals in São Simão (GO), Rio Verde (GO), and Iturama (MG), along with other infrastructure projects and rolling stock.

In his radio interview, President Lula expressed his satisfaction with completing the project.

“We will continue to build railroads to have an intermodal system. Combining highway, railroad, and maritime transport to reduce the Brazil Cost,” he noted.

The Minister of Transportation, Renan Filho, will also attend the inauguration ceremony.