TRANSPORTATION LOGISTICS

v. 10, n. 398, setembro, 2025

Abstract

Cargo transport involves running companies that are super important for keeping logistics working smoothly across the country. How well it all works depends a lot on having solid transportation infrastructure. Brazilian companies have been seeing their logistics costs go up in recent years — in 2023, it hit 18.4% of Brazil’s GDP and it’s still climbing. One big reason for that is how unbalanced the country’s cargo transport system is. It relies heavily on road transport, especially in the Northeast, where railways are pretty much nonexistent in most states (except for Maranhão). In the coming years, Brazil is expected to shift its cargo transport setup, with railways playing a bigger role — depending on how things go with the National Logistics Plan (PNL) and the rollout of projects in the new PAC and the Federal Government’s PPI. For the Northeast region, there’s a diverse list of transport projects lined up that’ll likely need funding in the medium term. These include infrastructure plans tied to different types of transport.