Brazil: New Sanitation Law Provides Opportunities
Project Finance Partner Peter Baumgaertner co-authored an article for Latinvex about a new sanitation law in Brazil that aims to bridge the $137 billion gap in needed investments. Basic sanitation is the infrastructure sector in Brazil with the greatest service deficit and challenges. The difficulties to develop this sector are due to several factors, such as the lack of appropriate planning, insufficient investments, management deficiencies of state public basic sanitation companies (state-owned enterprises or SOEs) and low technical quality of the projects. The new law aims to change this scenario by further opening the market to private investors and operators and to provide greater legal certainty for local and foreign investors. It also amends the existing legislation to embrace policies deemed essential in pursuit of the universalization of water and sewage services.