Brazil Freight Transport Report Q4 2009

Brazil's national maritime transport agency, Antaq, in April announced plans for the construction of between five and 10 new port sites by 2023, according to Brazilian newspaper Folha. The proposals are aimed at increasing the capacity of the country's ports in order to cater for a projected rise in cargo movement. BMI notes that traffic through the country's ports has fallen significantly following a drop in export volumes since Q408, though we expect traffic to increase over the long term. The study submitted to Brazil's special secretary for ports, Pedro Brito, on April 8 2009 identified 45 sites where new ports could be based, which Brito expects will be narrowed down to between five and 10 developments.

In its latest Brazil Freight Transport Report, BMI has set its forecast for annual average growth in freight carried across all modes over the 2009-2013 period at 3.7%. Various factors support this prediction. We believe that despite global economic cooling, the Brazilian economy, which will contract by under 1% this year, will manage low to moderate growth during our forecast period. Annual Brazilian GDP growth will average 2.3% during the 2009-2013 period (down from 4.7% in the preceding five-year period). This will underpin general freight demand.

The overall freight picture is encouraging - although work to improve and repair the highway network is still lagging - as road haulage will grow by an average of 3.0%. The largely privatised rail freight sector will do better, aided by Brazil's commodity export performance, particularly in mining. The rail freight growth figure in 2009-2013 will average 3.5% annually. Brazil performs well in our freight transport industry rating, scoring 77.8 out of 100, significantly above the regional average. Freight growth, infrastructure growth, and the regulatory and competitive environment all score well. Economic and political risk is comparable to the Latin American peer group. Foreign trade still represents only around 20% of GDP, although on the other hand the sheer geographical size of the country means there will be healthy internal demand for freight transport.

According to our latest estimates, the total value of transport and communications GDP will rise to US$126.7bn in nominal terms by 2013, representing 5.4% of Brazil's GDP. The transport and communications sector employed 4.725mn people, or 4.9% of the labour force, in 2008. We see these figures rising to 6.0mn - and 5.4% - by 2013.