BRAZIL – Ministério dos Transportes /GEIPOT Brasília, August 8^th 2000

GEIPOT is a planning and research public institution belonging to the Ministry of Transportation in Brazil. Its duties also covers sectoral policy formulation and monitoring, advisory to the Minister’s Cabinet , as well as technical cooperation with national and foreign institutions. As a consequence GEIPOT is very often assigned with tasks of preparing and coordinating sectoral meetings, and directing negotiations in name of the Ministry.

Technical cooperation is almost a day-to-day activity of GEIPOT staff. Each year a number representatives of national and foreign institutions pay a visit to GEIPOT searching to be acquainted with Brazilian experience in transportation planning, policy implementation and monitoring, and national sectoral legislation and statistics, as well. At the same time, sectoral privatization has been a special and constant theme of interest for our visitors and trade partners, searching to get insights from the Brazilian experience to the betterment of policies of their own countries, to explore new investment opportunities in Brazil, or simply to better understanding how to deal with national legislation and public institutions.

To attend this demand of knowledge and know-how GEIPOT has prompted special meetings and roundtables, sometimes complemented with field-visits. These technical gatherings are normally of short duration (half to one day, in most of the cases), as well as made-to-custom (that is to say, for each request a meeting is prepared to attend the specific points of interest for our visitors). From time to time GEIPOT also promotes and/or supports full seminars and training courses on special sectoral subjects. These are also held in accordance to requests presented by national and foreign institutions.

Portuguese is the working language for these meetings, translation being needed on occasions (for which the Embassy of the visitor’s country normally has given support). Also, a bottle-neck to GEIPOT technical cooperation has been the lack of founds to cover visitors’ travel and lodging expenses. Very seldom GEIPOT is able to obtain the corresponding needed financial support from national or international organizations, which then becomes a burden to be met by the visitor’s institution.

The following themes have been the most frequent in GEIPOT cooperation agenda:

• Transportation policy and infrastructure programs;

• Strategic transport corridors programs;

• Privatization and investment opportunities – roads and ports;

• Transportation of dangerous goods – legislation and monitoring;

• Urban transportation – policy and measures.

On behalf of the Ministry of Transportation of Brazil, GEIPOT would be glad to extend this modus of cooperation to sectoral public institutions of all WTHI member countries. Contacts could be made via WHTI Executive Committee List of Contact Points, through fac simile or e-Mail.

The following Roundtables (most of them of half to one day of duration) illustrate GEIPOT most recent technical cooperation with foreign institutions:

• IB International Business 2000 – visit of University students of Norway, to get acquainted with transportation policies and institutions in Brazil;

• Parliamentary Delegation of Nigeria – roundtable on the Brazilian experience on privatization of roads and ports infrastructures, with representatives of the Committee for Privatization and Trade of the National Parliament of Nigeria;

• US Mid-West Private Investors – roundtable on transportation planning, with emphasis on the "strategic transport corridors programs" serving the main agricultural areas of the country;

• Port Authority of Paraguay – visit of top-staff of Paraguay’s Port Authority to obtain information on inland waterways and heavy duty cargo handling in Brazilian seaports (which included a visit to the port of Vitória, in the south-east of Brazil);

• Parliament Delegation of Norway – visit of a Delegation of the Transportation Committee of the Parliament of Norway to get acquainted with transportation policies adopted in Brazil, with emphasis on sectoral privatization and investment opportunities in the country;

• Japan Bank for International Cooperation – roundtable on Brazilian transportation policy, with emphasis on privatization and investment opportunities, assembled for a delegation of representatives of private institutions;

• Transportation Officers of Colombia – roundtable on transportation planning and programs (transport corridors), and seaports and terminals management and operation (complemented with a field visit to the port of Paranaguá, in the south of Brazil).

GEIPOT has also cooperate with foreign institutions through providing them with materials on the Brazilian sectoral legislation and statistical data. Such kind of information has often been requested to provide foreign institutions staffs with new insights for accomplishing their tasks of policy formulation and implementation. Transportation institutions of Malaysia, Pakistan, Iran, Venezuela, and Bolivia are examples of those with which GEIPOT has lately cooperated through exchanging of information and data.

It should be added that GEIPOT internet site (http://www.geipot.gov.br) also offers extensive information on topics related to transportation in Brazil, including legislation and statistical data.