Logistics in the Amazon is an issue that has yet to be resolved and that should only begin to be addressed in the next government. After presenting, four years ago, a plan to reduce the region's logistical costs, the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) returned to debate the problem two months ago, without virtually any point of the original proposal having been attacked.
The entity's new assessment based on surveys by the Macrologística consultancy indicates that if nothing is done by 2020, the Amazon logistics park will have reached the limit of its capacity. The survey calculates that the necessary investments in road, rail and waterways add up to R$ 14 billion. According to the consultancy, the logistical cost of the Amazon is R$ 17 billion per year. In the four years since the original survey, no major work has been completed – with the exception of paving a section of the BR-163 (Cuiabá-Santarém). The work, begun during the Fernando Henrique government, will only be completed next year.
Two months ago, the Ministry of Integration and the Amazon Development Superintendence (Sudam) debated the inclusion of the projects mapped by the study in the next edition of the PAC, the Development Acceleration Program, and in the PIL (Logistics Investment Program). Launched in 2012, PIL has so far only invested 7% of what was planned. The program foresees projects worth R$ 240 billion.
Developing Amazonian logistics without harming environmental preservation is a great challenge, in the view of Augusto Rocha, doctor in transport engineering and professor at the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM). Rocha believes that Amazonian logistics costs between 30% and 40% more than in the rest of Brazil, due to the region's characteristic difficulties and the need for larger stocks than in other parts of the country.
He defends the permanent application of 2% of GDP in logistics investments to eliminate bottlenecks. Among them, the main industrial center of the northern region, Manaus. Isolated from the rest of the country by land – except in relation to Roraima -, the capital of Amazonas faces increasing costs in port and navigation operations. The alternative to river transport is air cargo, which is only viable for a portion of low-volume, high-value-added products.
The main land connection between Manaus and the rest of the country is now partially unused. A stretch of 400 to 500 kilometers of the BR-319 highway, which connects the Amazonian capital to Porto Velho, in Rondônia, is only passable by traction vehicle. Without paving, the stretch was taken over by the forest. The recovery of the BR-319 is foreseen by the PIL. The recovery of the highway was foreseen in the first edition of the PAC, it was withdrawn and returned in the logistics plan launched in 2012, but so far nothing has been done. In addition to the route through Porto Velho, loads traveling by truck to the Northeast and Center-South of the country must first face the XNUMX-kilometer journey by ferry to Belém.
There is a lot of discussion about replacing the highway with a railroad on the same route, occupying the already opened bed. The experts' assessment is that the railroad reduces the environmental impact as it has less potential for occupying its banks. The railroad is in the work plans of the federal government.
“We have a network of naturally fantastic, but abandoned, waterways”, comments Virgílio Viana, general superintendent of Fundação Amazônia Sustentável (FAS). “We need practical measures to support navigation, whose impact is much smaller than that of other modes, and we also need practices to mitigate the impact of this mode.”
According to him, the waterways “do not formally exist” in the Ministry of Transport, but “they are working at full speed”. According to Viana, the Amazon river waterway alone (Manaus-Belém) generates R$ 80 billion a year. “What you need is to identify the bottlenecks.” He defended the corridor between Manaus and Porto Velho and the departures through the river ports of northern Mato Grosso and southern Pará, mainly for products such as soybeans from the Midwest, today subject to a journey of 2 km or more by truck to the ports of the South and Southeast.
Viana criticized the lack of provision for locks in works intended for the production of energy in Amazonian rivers, such as those on the Madeira. The absence of locks prevents navigation over longer stretches, reducing the alternatives in the region. The good news is that the Navy promises to start marking and signaling the Madeira.
The president of FAS also mentioned the possibility of developing a properly signaled and buoyed waterway between Manaus and Iquitos, in Peru, along the Solimões river. According to him, it is an important alternative for the Free Trade Zone of Manaus with a view to trade relations with Andean countries.
Source: Valor Econômico
By: Eduardo Belo
