BRAZIL: The Federal Ministry of Transport has announced that a number of privately-funded rail projects will qualify for tax exemptions under the REIDI programme intended to encourage infrastructure investment.
Details of the qualifying projects were published in the Official Gazette towards the end of April.
Three of the projects are being promoted by Petrocity Ferrovias Ltda, a subsidiary of industrial group Petrocity Portos SA. Most ambitious of these is the R$14∙2bn Estrada de Ferro Juscelino Kubitschek intended to link Santa Maria, located just south of the capital, Brasília, with São Mateus in Espírito Santo on the South Atlantic coast. The 1 310 km line is named after a former Brazilian president and received authorisation from ANTT in 2021 under the Bolsonaro government’s Pro Trilhos programme.
Petrocity also has plans to develop a 242 km line from Barra de São Francisco in Espírito Santo to Ipatinga in Minas Gerais and the 530 km Planalto Centro route from Campos Verdes in Goiás to Unaí in Minas Gerais.
Mining group Vale expects the tax incentives to allow it to proceed with various improvement projects on the 1 000 mm gauge Estrado de Ferro Vitória a Minas and the 1 600 mm gauge Estrado de Ferro Carajás.
Pulp and paper company Suzano will be able to take advantage of the scheme to improve the flow of pulp from a manufacturing plant to the port of Santos. In January Suzano received approval from ANTT, the National Land Transport Agency, to spend nearly R$1∙3bn on construction of a 136 km line from pulp production sites at Três Lagoas to Aparecida do Taboado under a 99-year concession.
