Laborando en las ferrovías.

• Author: Fabey, Michael
• Position: Transporte; Brasil - TT: Working on the Railroad. - TA: transportation; Brazil

The Brazilian truckers' strike shows the need for alternative modes of transportation.

For several days in late July, Brazil's Port of Santos--the biggest and busiest port of all Latin America--was as quiet as a cemetery. Factories throughout the state and most of industrial Brazil were equally silent. No trucks, no cargo. The only thing moving successfully through Sao Paulo was commuter traffic, an uncommon occurrence.

A strike by the country's truckers, upset over sharp increases in fuel prices, among other things, all but paralyzed freight movement for four days until President Fernando Henrique Cardoso threatened to send in troops. It took weeks for factories, stores and traders to catch up.

But the strike had a much more lasting effect: It showed Brazil's dependence on its overburdened and costly trucking system.

The truckers' actions may give Brazil's developing inter-modal industry just the boost it needs. "In a sense, the truck strike was a good thing," says Celina BT Carpi, a director of Rio de Janeiro-based Grupo Libra, a leading Brazilian transportation company. "All the major political players realize there is something wrong with the government strategy and they must rethink it."

Others agree. "We need different modes of transportation," says Carlos Eduardo dos Santos Fernandes, a customs broker for Dakar Comércio Exterior Ltda. in Santos. So says Wady Jasmin, president of the biggest container port operator in Santos: "We should have the same kinds of alternatives as the U.S. East Coast. That includes trucks, trains and sea."

The Brazilian government would like to see that, too. Depending on whose figures you use, truckers carry between 65% to 80% of the cargo moved through the country. Its current strategy calls for private companies to take over the railroads and ports and make them competitors that can cut into the trucking monopoly.

Big sums. But that government strategy has fallen apart as private investment has proven to be too little to improve the alternative transportation systems. "There are just too many investments that are needed for the railroad system that cannot be done by the concessionists," Carpi says. "It's just too much."

Indeed, concession winners--especially those in the railroad industry--are laying quite a bit of their own money on the line. Billions of dollars are being slated for investments over the next couple of years. One of the companies, Ferronorte, recently imported about US$51 million worth...