If any country has cashed in on the Bolivarian revolution, that is Brazil, particularly the private companies of the southern neighbor.
Over the past five years, it has been awarded contracts for works to be carried out in Venezuela for over USD 14 billion. This puts it as the first recipient of government-to-government contracts, that is, without bidding, since Hugo Chávez took office.
Interestingly, in this financial relation where Brazilian businessmen have Hugo Chávez's blessing, the works executed in Venezuela are up to fourfold similar works elsewhere in the world, where, unlike Venezuela, there are tough controls for tender of sizeable works.
Critic Simón Bocanegra commented that when Presidents of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela were walking on the second bridge over River Orinoco, built by Brazilian giant Odebrecht, during its inauguration, an excited Chávez bluntly promised Lula that right away he was granting him the construction of the third bridge over River Orinoco.
Talking numbers
The building of the second bridge over River Orinoco, viewed as the most significant work over the past few years in Venezuela started in 2001 under a government-to-government agreement entered into by Brazil and Venezuela. On the Brazilian side, the work was awarded to Odebrecht, a company that has built substantial infrastructure and transportation works in that country.
The second bridge over River Orinoco is 3.5 kilometers long; it has four lanes for vehicles and one railway. The work final cost amounts to USD 1.28 billion. The railway is pending.
Comparing this work, for instance, with Donghai bridge in China, there will be a large difference in terms of cost, even though both of them have a similar degree of technological complexity.
Donghai bridge links Luchao port, in Shanghai, with Yangshan, a deep-water port. It was built over River Yangzi, across 32.5 kilometers in length, and has six lanes for vehicles. Construction works started in 2002, with a final cost of USD 1.2 billion, same as the Venezuelan bridge.
This means that the cost of the Chinese bridge per constructed kilometer was around USD 37.5 million, whereas the cost of the bridge over River Orinoco stood approximately at USD 400 million per constructed kilometer.Both bridges have similar characteristic features. The bridge over River Orinoco comprises four towers, each of 120 meters; 39 single piers of up to 87 meters in depth; two navigation channels of 300 meters in length, and a metal super-structure, composed of 272 modules, which is the responsible for sustaining the flow channels and is reinforced by a stretch of 1,200 meters.
As for Donghai, one of the largest in the world, it has two bridges for the passage of high-tonnage oceanic ships and a roadway of three channels of flow each direction, but without railway.
The construction of the second bridge over River Orinoco had been envisaged back to 1990, with two railways and a lower slope. Then, the work had been estimated at approximately USD 300 million.
The Southern giant
Every time Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is on a foreign tour, he does not travel alone. He is generally joined by high-ranking industrialists and businessmen. Therefore, in his meetings in Europe, the United States or in Asian countries, top managers of companies, such as Odebrecht or Camargo Correo are beside the president, because they have been instrumental in the economic expansion of Brazil over the past few years.
Unlike his Venezuelan counterpart, Lula has said: "I am keenly aware of the importance of Brazilian businesses, because every time a (Brazilian) company becomes multinational, it is our country's flagship."
Based on this philosophy, he told European Union businessmen that "Brazil will be among the five or six best economies in the world by 2016." Incidentally, that year Rio de Janeiro will be the venue of the Olympic Games.
One of the rationales provided by the Venezuelan government to favor foreign builders, such as Odebrecht, is that the technology is not available in Venezuela for such huge works. However, Humberto Acosta, a member of the Board of Directors of the Venezuelan Engineers' Association, does not think so, and he understands that
government-to-government deals yield substantial profits based on agreements previously signed with no bidding.Link:
http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/11/06/en_ing_esp_works-flying-high_06A3001653.shtml
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
