BRAZIL: The concession to operate, manage and extend the Belo Horizonte metro was awarded to Comporte Participações in an auction held at the B3 São Paulo Stock Exchange on December 22.
Infrastructure and property development investment company Comporte Participações offered R$25·8m, 33·9% more than the R$19·3m minimum that federal development bank BNDES was seeking.
The sole metro line in Belo Horizonte is 28 km long with 19 stations. It opened in 1986 and incorporates various sections of former main line railway.
Comporte Participações is to invest R$3·5bn in the metro over the next 30 years, including taking forward two long-planned extensions. The first is the one-station extension of Line 1 from Eldorado to Novo Eldorado at the western end of the route.
The second would form Line 2, a 10∙5 km route linking Nova Suíça on Line 1 with Barreiro in the southwest of the city, serving seven stations. The two additions are expected to be inaugurated in stages between the end of 2026 and 2028.
‘This is a challenging project but will certainly be very rewarding. It will enable a significant improvement for urban mobility in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte and, consequently, in the life of the citizens’, commented Bruno Westin Leal, the national government’s Minister for Investment Partnerships.
