Legal security is just as important to attract investments in logistics infrastructure as demand and good projects. Despite all the progress of the last few years, when the country intensified concessions of highways, harbors and airports, we still have to evolve and face the difficulties imposed to the private sector – bureaucracy, judicialisation and authority overlap are the main obstacles. The theme has been explored during the meeting Transportation Infrastructure in Brazil, held recently in Washington DC (USA).

At the meeting, lawyer Pedro Dutra commented on a growing weakening of the regulatory environment in Brazil. His opinion was that new laws will not solve the problem, once the system is confused, a “jurisdictional babel”, as he put it, especially regarding the authority overlap. “Today we have seven different boards interfering with agencies regulatory actions. It’s an environment that offers no institutional security”, he said.

To Dutra, agencies should have technical, operative, budgetary and hyerarchic independy, going from “government boards” to “Brazilian boards”.

Professor Ramon Cesar, from Dom Cabral Foundation (FDC), agrees with the lawyers views. “The cause of this feeling of regulatory insecurity is the confrontation that still exists in Brazil, which, actually, is still a matter of ideology”, said the infrastructure consultant Bernardo Figueiro, who also presided the National Land Transportation Agency (ANTT). The businessman also urged for more protagonism for the regulatory agencies and higher project quality.