Signals issued by the new occupants of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) ministry on the direction of the Minha Casa, Minha Vida housing program are an injection of courage for the civil construction sector, but do not guarantee an immediate revision of projections, he said. this Wednesday (4) the president of the CBIC (Brazilian Chamber of the Construction Industry), José Carlos Martins.
The day before, the new Minister of Cities, Jader Barbalho Filho, promised that his team would start working “immediately” on rebuilding the housing program and commented that there are BRL 10 billion assured for 2023.
“It’s a mood change, with improved prospects. Our product is for the long term and the worst thing that can exist in our sector is not having expectations,” said Martins in an interview with Reuters. “But it will really give a practical effect in 2024”, he added, explaining that the R$ 10 billion will be used in the Minha Casa Minha Vida segment operated only with resources from the National Treasury and which was practically paralyzed during the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) .
Martins stated that the start of construction of the program’s first new projects after the resumption may only take place from the second half. “There is no way to start today. There were no new projects during the Bolsonaro government”, said the president of Cbic.
According to him, the previous government resumed part of the works for 220,000 housing units stopped during Dilma Rousseff’s government, with no new developments. As a result, “there is now no new project in the pipeline,” he said. “About 40% of the companies that operated in the housing program went bankrupt and those that were left went to other segments.”
“You have to bring companies back, give them peace of mind, confidence,” said Martins.
The minister stated during the inauguration ceremony the day before that Brazil has a housing deficit of 5.9 million homes and that Minha Casa, Minha Vida, created in 2009, contracted 4.2 million homes by 2016. replaced in 2020, in the government of Jair Bolsonaro, by Casa Verde e Amarela, which did not take off.
Minha Casa, Minha Vida as a whole already represented about 75% of the Brazilian residential real estate market, said the president of Cbic. Currently, the program has a share of around 50%.
Martins stated that the construction sector had some meetings with the Lula government’s transition team and that there is no expectation for the time being of changes in the current rules for operating the housing program.
The focus, as mentioned by Barbalho Filho, will be on the segment that is operated entirely with Treasury resources and that in the last four years “has not moved”, said the president of CBIC, adding that there are still “thousands of works at a standstill”.
But, in addition to resuming the program, Martins said that there must be a reduction in interest rates, a task that the Central Bank may find difficult in light of the new government’s criticism of the spending ceiling. “With interest at that level, people no longer deposit money in savings,” he said. Savings is the main source of funding for the real estate sector.
In mid-December, the CBIC released a 2.5% growth forecast for the civil construction sector this year, below the 7% forecast for 2022 and the 10% for 2021.
At the same time, the president of the association of developers, Abrainc, Luiz França, stated that “all our conversations with the transition team and, yesterday, with the new minister, were very productive”.
SANITATION
In the area of sanitation, the president of the CBIC expressed optimism in the face of an expectation that the sector’s framework will not be completely revised, but “improved” to include solutions that meet areas in which the private sector is not interested in assuming alone, such as small locations in regions far from large centers.
“The equation has to be studied. Marco decided how to improve the system [de saneamento]but he didn’t solve the small systems and that’s where the percentage of sanitation is very low”, said Martins, adding that Public-Private Partnerships can be an alternative.
“I’m sure that no government wants to be dependent on an inefficient sanitation company. This change was made (with the sanitation framework). Going back now I don’t think it’s very easy. The states want to clean up their companies to put money in cash” , said the president of the CBIC referring to the privatization processes.
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