The column by journalist Ancelmo Gois this Monday, in The Globe, brought some worrying news: a carrier has about 300 trucks stopped in Manaus waiting for cargo to the Southeast. This news is worrying for several reasons, two of them quite evident in the note: the drop in national production, a direct reflection of the downturn in the economy, and because 300 trucks are stopped, the worst scenario for a carrier.
These two aspects are circumstantial, results of the moment in the economy, and will be reversed at one time or another. However, there is a third that, for me, is much more worrying than the other two: in the middle of 2015, Brazil still transports cargo between Manaus and the Southeast by truck!
Currently, just under 10% of Brazilian production is handled by cabotage, while regions such as China and the European Union, with territories as extensive as Brazil's, transport more than 30% of their cargo by coastal shipping. For Brazilian cargo shippers, this distortion is mainly due to the precarious infrastructure of national ports and excessive government bureaucracy, as we heard in recent study carried out by ILOS.
Figure 1 – Comparison between the cargo transport matrix of Brazil, China and the European Union
Source: ILOS, Eurostat, National Bureau Statistics of China, 2014
The encouragement is that, in the last 10 years, the annual growth in the handling of containers by cabotage has been 13% per year, and more than 40% of the companies in the country already use the modal. In addition, shippers are interested in expanding their cabotage operations, mainly between Manaus and the Southeast. However, there needs to be more investment in Brazilian ports, in addition to reducing bureaucracy on the part of government agencies. If this does not happen, we run the risk of remaining totally dependent on an expensive and polluting mode such as road transport.
References:
Panorama ILOS “Brazilian Ports – User Assessment and Performance Analysis – 2015”
O Globo Newspaper - 14/12/2015
Alexandre Lobo
https://ilos.com.brGraduated in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and in Social Communication from Faculdades Integradas Hélio Alonso (FACHA). Expertise in several projects with emphasis on market analysis for companies such as Unilever, Intertank, Invepar, Aqces, Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank.
