BNDES should reduce funding in infrastructure

Despite the government’s determination for BNDES to focus its performance even more in funding the large infrastructure projects, the state-owned bank should lend less to the industry in 2012, according to the institution estimates obtained by Folha.

The estimated figure for this year is US$ 28.66 billion. If it is confirmed, it will be 10.3% lower than the US$ 31.96 billion disbursed by the development bank in 2011.

The reduction tends to occur because BNDES plans a leaner budget as a whole in 2012. There is also the fact that some areas of infrastructure have not yet presented more structured projects (such as sanitation and telecommunications) to the extent that they have already been mapped by BNDES.

These branches, however, require much less credit than those included in the preliminary estimate and last year they did not reach disbursements comparable to the difference of nearly US$ 3.41 billion between loans from 2011 and those scheduled for 2012.

Since 2011, BNDES has financed the infrastructure more and left that the private capital market supplies part of the industry’s lack of credit.

For the first time, the area that involves energy, transportation and other undertakings grabbed the largest share of disbursements from the state bank: 40%, compared with 32% of the manufacturing sector.

In a recent interview, the Bank President Luciano Coutinho said that it was a government decision to prioritize the infrastructure in face of the need to pave the way for a more sustainable growth and to allow the major projects for the World Cup and the Olympics.

The BNDES Infrastructure Director Roberto Zurli said to the newspaper Folha that the bank’s budget is also built by the demand for funding, which grew for the infrastructure area.

This shows that the investments in infrastructure are steady. He said they are growing because of the need for investment and, of course, are very driven by the government, which launches concession auctions, PPPs [public-private partnerships] and other initiatives.

Out of the total estimated in funding for infrastructure in 2012, US$ 13.33 billion should be lent to the so-called pure-credit investment to entrepreneurs of large projects such as dams, railways, ports, airports and others.

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Zurli said that the areas of wind energy, power transmission lines, hydroelectrics (the disbursements for Belo Monte should be intensified) and airports will receive special attention.
Another US$ 15.32 billion included in the projection are financing for the purchase of machinery and equipment related to infrastructure.

A good share – still not detailed by the BNDES technicians – will be for the credit for the purchase of trucks and buses under the Finame line.

It is a modality dedicated to the financing of machinery and equipment and passed to BNDES clients through other financial institutions, which do credit analysis and take the risk to themselves in exchange for a percentage on the BNDES basic interest rate.