After decades of reforms, with privatization and creation of, it is already possible to identify what works in the Brazilian: projects with good modeling, more disputed auctions, experienced operators and more predictable regulations. With incentives for a more efficient, universal and safe provision for the population, the ability to attract private investments grow.
In the recent Legal Framework is allowing auctions of regional blocks, increased competition and the entry of specialized operators, including international. In addition to privatization, public-private partnerships began to precet the right to water and sewage with feasible goals.
The depollution of Flamengo Beach, in Rio de Janeiro, and that of Vitória or the sanitation of the Metropolitan Region of Maceió brought concrete benefits to society. Sergipe, Pará and at least six other states have been entering the list of concessions. Four states privatized their companies.
In energy, the electricity sector operates under mature regulation, and there is a new way for renewables in the carbon market.
In mobility, there are block auctions, focusing on performance and regional service. The new Dutra brought competitive auction, predictable tariff and investment commitment.
The Ministry of Transport has done a careful work to revise contracts and reduction of regulatory risks, and road concessions have entered a very promising supercycle. Contractual engineering started to import as much as the engineering of the work.
Telecommunications networks expanded with the auction of, in 2021, and subsequent regulation, with promotion for competition in the broadband market, creating strong local participants. The foundations were created for the advancement of digital-successful success depended on municipalities, by updating land use laws to allow the installation of antennas.
Municipalities that have modernized their legislation – today over a thousand – concentrate more than 85% of the 5G base radio stations (ERBs), allowing a denser and more efficient coverage. Quality connectivity is no longer an urban privilege and becomes a vector of productive inclusion, innovation and competitiveness on a national scale. An important example is digitization and the broad provision of government services (through the e-Gov platform).
In the port sector, the privatization of Codesa (Companhia Docks of Espírito Santo), a pioneer among the port authorities, inaugurated a new stage of governance and investments, with impressive productivity gains. The Auction of Tecon 10, in the Port of Santos, marks another relevant movement: the increase in competition and the installed capacity, even if involved in legal disputes and resistance of historical operators.
In parallel, the regulatory agenda modernized instruments and reinforced the predictability of the contracts – informing the green grant and the passage contracts. These adjustments make Brazilian ports more attractive to private capital and align the sector with the demands of integrated logistics, the foundation for the growth of foreign trade.
On its part, BNDES has developed project structuring treadmills, coordinating with subnational governments, multilateral banks and the private sector. The drastic reduction of subsidies helped the agency find a new strand of action, still with room to learn from the best international experiences.
There is the challenge of equipping the state with compatible technical capacity, including the control bodies. The entrepreneur already arrives with advanced financial models, internalized cost engineering and international know-how. On both sides there are still stable pictures, trainee programs, owner engineering. It is necessary to invest in training more engineers and professionals for contract management.
Contracts need to be treated as living systems. They are long – with deadlines of 20, 30 years – but cannot be rigid. They need to predict rebalancing triggers, parametric formulas for automatic revisions, market mechanisms that respond to price shocks and regulatory changes. The more exposed the contract to the so -called “prince risk” (risk of arbitrary changes), the greater the required prize – and the higher the cost to the end user. Most predictable projects cost less.
Regulatory agencies, in turn, need technical and institutional capacity. There are still those who operate under strong political influence and without consistent surveillance mechanisms.
In financing, the biggest challenge is between the auction and the debt take-out, when short-term financing needs to be replaced by long-term financial engineering. This is the most sensitive interval, where the perceived risk is higher and the guarantee structure, usually the receivables of the concession, is still in formation. The countercyclic performance in coordination with funding agencies and the capital market allows you to lock the auction rate, ensure transition resources and reduce the cost of leveraged capital.
This set of advances forms the basis of a promising cycle of infrastructure investments from an important, supragovernmental learning trail. There are global operators installed, interested capital and, as there is evident lack of quality infrastructure – physical or digital – return rates are quite attractive.
What is missing is to consolidate all this under a schedule that unites project structuring and intelligent regulation, with less bureaucracy, macroeconomic stability, with lower macro risk and capital cost (always fiscal adjustment) and legal certainty.
Brazilian infrastructure cannot just be promise. It is institutional asset under construction. But to make the definitive leap, far beyond the 2% of the current ones, this silent schedule needs to gain more technical, responsible and consistent contours.
