Brazilian government says privatization of Rio de Janeiro airports will take place in 2023.
Brazil’s Minister of Infrastructure, Tarcisio de Freitas, announced Thursday that the privatization of Rio de Janeiro’s 2 airports will only take place in 2023, due to the unexpected return of the concession of one of them.
“The seventh round (of privatizations) was already being advanced with (airport) Santos Dumont isolated. But this Changi move generates another behavior for us,” Freitas told reporters after the Singaporean consortium’s decision to withdraw from the management of Galeao airport.
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The Changi group announced Thursday the return to the State of the concession of the international airport “Tom Jobim”, known as “Galeao”, the largest in Rio de Janeiro and the second in the country with more international flights behind Cumbica, in the city of Guarulhos and operating to Sao Paulo, reported EFE.
The decision of Changi, controller of the RIOGaleao consortium, was officially communicated to the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC, regulator), justified its exit by the “economic recession in the country since 2014” and the effects on aviation of the covid-19 pandemic.
Changi (51 %) and the state-owned Infreaero (49 %), which make up the consortium, will receive compensation from the Government due to damages caused by lower profitability than stipulated in the contract and part of that amount may be assumed by the company that takes over.
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However, RIOGaleao informed that it will remain in the administration of the air terminal until the new operator, which expires the tender, assumes control.
In a statement, the consortium indicated that since it took control of the airport, in 2014 on the occasion of the World Cup, it invested 2.6 billion reais (about $500 million) for the necessary reforms and that they also met the requirements for the 2016 Olympic Games.
Thus, the government decided to withdraw Santos Dumont, the city’s second largest and one of the busiest airports in the country, from the next round of bids for airport concessions, to join Galeao in a public auction next year.
“That is something very interesting in this model, because we will be able to consider the two airports together. It changes what was being thought and we quickly adapted to that. The devolution resolves a series of issues and takes away another series of concerns,” said the minister.
The initiative is part of the vast program of privatizations and concessions promoted by the government of Jair Bolsonaro since he took office in 2019, with the intention of lightening the weight of the State and straightening the country’s battered public accounts.
Photo: Mucio Scorzelli/Wikimedia
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