Lula promises to ‘recover’ Petrobras and the Brazilian shipping industry

The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvastated this Tuesday (2), during the inauguration of dredging works on the São Lourenço Channel, in the Port of Niterói, a city in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, that the Brazilian government seeks to recover the Petrobras. According to Lula, in some business areas sold or paralyzed by the state-owned company’s previous administrations, the government is trying to “start all over again”. “We are trying to recover Petrobras. They didn’t have the courage to privatize and, therefore, they started selling Petrobras assets. They sold BR (Distributor), gas pipelines, paralyzed Comperj, which had 15% left to complete and was stopped for almost ten years. Now, we’re back and we’re going to start all over again. But the work of rebuilding is not easy,” said the president. In a half-hour speech to local workers and the city’s civil servants, Lula promised to reactivate shipyards and return to building vessels in the country, as happened in 2003, when he became President for the first time. For this objective, Petrobras and its demand for services and vessels are central.

The president made a long defense of investments in the shipping and fishing industry in order to generate jobs and income. “Rest assured that we will recover the Brazilian shipping industry. It is not possible for a country that does 90% of its trade by sea to receive and export products with foreign-flagged ships. We have to finance the shipping industry again. There is no possibility of recovering the country if the economy does not grow again. It is necessary to generate employment, because employment generates income, income generates consumption and consumption brings development”, said Lula.

Lula also did not spare his opponents: “We took this country apart. This country no longer had a Ministry of Fisheries, Ports and Airports, and many others that existed but did not function. Instead of governance, we had lies, instead of health, we had lies, instead of jobs, we had lies”, he criticized. During his speech, Lula said that one year and three months is “very little time” to fulfill promises made in the economic campaign. “One year and three months of government is very little compared to the commitment I made to the Brazilian people. I remember well every word, every thing I promised in the campaign,” he said.

The intervention in the Port of Niterói will increase the depth of the channel from 7 meters to 11 meters, at an investment of R$ 157 million, allowing the arrival of ships with a deeper draft, mainly logistics service vessels in the oil and gas chain. Of the total, R$137 million will be contributed by Niterói City Hall and another R$20 million by Companhia Docas do Rio de Janeiro, a public company linked to the federal government.

The president also once again complained about the paralyzed works which, according to him, in the areas of Health and Education alone, totaled 6 thousand initiatives. “In Minha Casa Minha Vida alone, there were 87 thousand houses that had been started and were stopped. Someone took an attitude in this country that they no longer needed to build and invest, but they had everything in green and yellow,” said Lula. More than once, the president expressed the logic that it is necessary for the State and state-owned companies to induce economic growth through local works and production.

*With information from Estadão Conteúdo