Infrastructure

This chapter analyzes the issues surrounding Brazil’s long-standing underinvestment in critical infrastructure. Following a survey of sectoral issues—in transportation, water, and energy—the chapter addresses the challenges that will need to be overcome if infrastructural bottlenecks are to be overcome successfully. The challenges center on regulatory as much as financial constraints. Particular areas of concern in the latter regard center on uncertainties surrounding the regulatory process, the existence of overlapping regulators and poor regulatory design. However, fiscal constraints, high financing costs and lack of technical capacity are also relevant features of the environment in which Brazilian infrastructure investment has to take place.