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Port operator Emap to increase Itaqui’s capacity ten-fold over the next 20 years
Itaqui Port, located on Brazil’s northeast coast, is set undergo a US$3.13 billion (6.3 billion reais) expansion over the next 20 years.
The project, including an investment of 1.4 billion reais by 2016, will increase Itaqui’s annual cargo handling to 150 million tonnes by the end of the next decade, Luiz Carlos Fossati, the president of Itaqui port operator Maranhense Port Administration Co (Emap), told Reuters.
Brazil’s ports have faced increasing criticism in recent months for being among the slowest and most costly in the world. Last year, in a bid to resurrect the South American country’s ailing port infrastructure, the government said that it will invest as much as 54.2 billion reais over the next four years as part of a major modernisation programme.
The Port of Itaqui, which moved 15.7 million tonnes of cargo in 2012, is located closer to both Europe and the United States than all of the country’s major southern ports.
