Os efeitos econômicos da eficiência portuária no Brasil

Abstract

The contemporary structure of international trade, organized in a context of productive integration between countries and global value chains, demand logistical provisions that make possible the operation of the flow of products and inputs, both for the foreign and domestic market. Specifically, the port sector is responsible for operating a large part of all movement related to international trade. Thus, logistical and operational advances in the sector, in particular the reduction in the time it takes for a vessel to carry out the operational procedures, indicates an improvement in terms of port efficiency, which in turn reduces non-tariff barriers in such a way that it increases trade relations between world economies. This dissertation contributes to this debate and evaluates the long-term economic effects of reducing the loading and unloading days of the Brazilian port system in relation to the trend path of the Brazilian economy (business-as-usual). To accommodate this general objective, this research constructed annual vectors of average operating time per product loaded and unloaded by maritime navigation in Brazilian ports from the microdata available from the National Agency for Water Transport (ANTAQ). These annual vectors were converted into non-tariff equivalents for the simulation of three scenarios of port efficiency gains in a multi-region computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the world economy, known as the Dynamic Global Trade Analysis Project (GDyn). The conclusive results indicate that efficiency gains in port operations, by helping to remove and/or reduce these barriers on the flow of imported and exported goods, would stimulate the scale of production and demand of certain domestic sectors in the Brazilian economy. In particular, they would promote national industrialization processes, given that increasing port efficiency by 25% by 2040 would generate greater productive growth in higher added value sectors (Services and Manufacturing Industry), a combined effect of 0.185%. The primary sectors (Agriculture and Extractive Industry) would have a deviation of only 0.001%, which would indicate a change in the productive direction of the economy. In addition, physical capital formation would increase, especially as a result of increased demand for imported inputs that would complement supply. When comparing with other regions of the world, the Mercosur countries would benefit more from the Brazilian port efficiency gain than the other regions.