Privatization of the port of Santos is ruled out, says Márcio França

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The privatization of the port of Santos, the largest in Latin America, is out of the question, said the future Minister of Ports and Airports, Márcio França (PSB), after having his name nominated by President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

“The port authority will remain state-owned. What we do is concession of areas within the port, of private terminals”, he said.

The process of privatization of the port of Santos was being forwarded by the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government and was under analysis by the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União). In September, the CPPI (Investment Partnership Program Council) defined the conditions for granting the port to the private sector.

As it was sent to TCU, the project provided for at least R$ 30 billion in investments to expand the port’s outflow capacity. The grant would revolve around BRL 10 billion, considering the port and access to it.

“To where [concessão] it has already been done, we respect it, now there are situations that have not been approved. Those that have not been homologated will go through the scrutiny of the new government, by the technicians who have our vision on this”, said França.

Since the new government’s transition team signaled that the project would be reviewed next year, port operators and investment funds interested in privatizing the port of Santos have pulled the handbrake. The deadlock signaled the postponement of the auction, which was scheduled for this year.

According to the future minister, the port authority of Santos “continues as it is”. “A competition was planned now and we asked them to postpone everything for the future so that the president could give his opinion”, he added.

For 2023, the new holder of the portfolio –which is a slice of the current Ministry of Infrastructure– intends to “be careful” with concessions and rethink each strategy individually. “We don’t have reservations for anything that is private, but we don’t have a rule to privatize everything,” he said.

As for airports, França commented on concessions that could be returned, such as the airports of Viracopos, in Campinas, and Galeão, in Rio de Janeiro.

“It is not possible that we will have a partner dissatisfied with being there. And then he is no longer able to make the investment, because in some way he thinks he was harmed by the agreement that was made”, he said.

He also stated that the Lula government will strengthen Infraero, the state-owned company that manages airports. “Infraero is a company with a long history, in a country of gigantic dimensions, and which, in fact, came here doing many things”, he commented.

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