Despite delays in concession auctions, investments in infrastructure should rise in 2014. Depending on the calculation, it is possible that the amount invested in major works will reach 2,5% of GDP this year, slightly higher than that observed in 2013.
Although they do not show the same trend as investments in the country in general, which are falling, economists highlight the limitations of these investments in infrastructure, which until now have been much more focused on road transport than on other modes. The railroads, for example, did not leave the drawing board.
As the auctions are practically paralyzed this year, some consultancies have cut their estimates for infrastructure advancement this year. Inter.B, for example, reduced the estimate for this type of investment in 2014, from BRL 131,7 billion to BRL 130,2 billion, although as a proportion of GDP this result represents an increase of 2,51% to 2,54 .2,5% because of weaker activity. LCA Consultores, on the other hand, calculates that investment in infrastructure has risen from 2013% in 2,6 to 2% in the first half of this year as a proportion of GDP. The LCA did not make projections for the year as a whole. Pezco Microanalysis, in turn, draws a more pessimistic picture and estimates that investment in infrastructure this year will be 2,1% of GDP, slightly lower than last year's XNUMX%.
According to a study by Inter.B, which will be released this week at the National Forum, in Rio, if the 2,54% of GDP is confirmed, it will be higher than what has occurred in recent years. Study authors Claudio Frischtak and Katharina Davies, however, view the data with skepticism. Frischtak points out that most of this increase has to do with the downward revision of the denominator. The consultancy predicts a nominal increase of 6% of GDP this year against a previous, more optimistic forecast of 8,13%. This caused the ratio of investments in infrastructure to GDP to rise. In addition, the value of planned investments was revised downwards, by 1,1%, due to delays in works such as the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC).
“If you think about public resources, what the BNDES lent and how much the government got into debt, even so little progress has been made”, criticizes Frischtak. In Inter.B's calculations, only investment in the transport segment will advance in 2014. Other sectors such as sanitation, energy and telecommunications either shrink or remain stable in relation to what was invested in 2013 as a proportion of GDP.
Frederico Turolla, partner at Pezco and professor at the Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing (ESPM), believes that the government has invested in logistics infrastructure, mainly highways, to the detriment of other segments, such as electricity and telecommunications. He says that “the country would not have to choose, but the macroeconomic environment worsened and the uncertainties in the regulatory framework limited options”.
For Turolla, the way in which the renewal of energy concession contracts was carried out in 2012, for example, reduced investments in the sector, which fell from 0,9% of GDP in that year to 0,7% in 2014, according to Pezco's estimates. Pezco's projections for transportation indicate investment stability at 0,6% of GDP.
In any case, Turolla says that the country missed a “golden chance” to change the face of the projects carried out in Brazil and continued with the “road service” that has marked national development for decades. “Excessive regulation has changed the dynamics of resource allocation, which used to be more private and flexible, and has made it paralyzed”, he says. The regulatory framework is the main reason why the railroad projects, which should add up to R$ 100 billion in investments over the next few years, have not even been put up for auction so far, he points out.
Braulio Borges, chief economist at LCA, criticizes the delay in executing the projects. He calculates that between 2013 and 2014 works were contracted totaling approximately R$ 120 billion, of which about two thirds will have an impact on the economy in the next five years. In addition to road stretches, the list also includes the concession of the airports of Galeão, in Rio de Janeiro, and Confins, in Minas Gerais, in addition to public-private partnerships in the States, such as line 6-Orange, of the subway in São Paulo. “We have another R$60 billion that has not yet been contracted, but which could have an impact on GDP this year, which generates some frustration, and another R$100 billion that will only start in 2015,” he says.
Analysts also recall that the country is still far from investment in infrastructure corresponding to 4% of GDP, which would be more adequate and could leverage economic growth more consistently.
Turolla, from Pezco, believes that the country missed an important financing opportunity to increase its infrastructure in an environment marked by strong international liquidity. With a smaller supply of capital from now on, with the normalization of monetary policy in the United States, the economist believes that it will be difficult for the country to reach 4% of GDP in infrastructure projects.
For Frischtak, from Inter.B, to sustain GDP growth of 4% a year, which today would be in his assessment above the country's potential, but achievable with "reforms" in the economy, investments in infrastructure should be 4,5 .XNUMX% of GDP.
Borges, from LCA, assesses that the delays in the auctions, with little investment in ports and none in railways so far, reduced the short-term impact of the Investment Program in Logistics. For him, it should take a little longer, possibly 2018, for investment in infrastructure to approach 4% of GDP.
Borges assesses that Brazil invested 2,6% of GDP in infrastructure in the first half, but considers that the data may have been slightly inflated due to the completion of the works for the World Cup. Even so, he says, other indicators, such as asphalt consumption, point to a better year for the transport segment, with an increase of 31% between January and July this year, after growth of 3,3% in 2013 and 4,3. 2012% in XNUMX.
This advance is usually greater in an election year, Borges points out, but he says that this year's performance is similar to that of 2010 (+32%), although the economic environment is quite different. “It is a sign that investment in road infrastructure is not slowing down like industrial investment,” he says.
Source: Valor Econômico
By Tainara Machado and Vanessa Jurgenfeld
