Inefficiencies add to Brazilian cargo costs

That was the assessment of experts at the recent ‘Break-bulk South America Congress’ in Sao Paulo, who believe that the problems dogging break-bulk and project cargo movements in the country’s ports are down to unskilled labour at public terminals to redundant government bureaucracy. Cargo handling demands at most of Brazil’s 34 major ports far outweighs their capacity; this leads to delays and bottlenecks.

As reported by CM earlier this month (December), the Brazil President Dilma Rousseff unveiled a R$54.2bn (US$27.4bn) public-private investment (PPI) plan to modernise Brazil’s ports, with bids from the private sector to build and operate new ports and terminals being considered next year. In a deviation from previous packages, port licenses are to be awarded to groups that promise to handle the highest cargo volumes at the lowest rates.

“We have a lack of expertise. Today when project managers launch projects, crucial analysis is not made and there is no integration with logistics people; this leads to higher costs and Brazil loses,” said Gustavo Murari, project manager at Kuehne + Nagel Logistics Services.