Pinguelli: Eletrobras to regain investment capacity

Brazil's federally-controlled power sector holding Eletrobras will regain its investment capacity and a key role the electricity system, newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo quoted company president Luiz Pinguelli Rosa as saying. Eletrobras will be taken off the national privatization program (PND), allowing it to incur debts and begin new investments. A bill that removes Eletrobras and companies in its group from the PND is being debated in congress. "Eletrobras will be removed form the PND, I guarantee," Pinguelli was quoted as saying. Eletrobras will assume a role similar to Petrobras, which raises financing abroad, follows government energy policy guidelines, leads partnerships with private companies, and operates as a private company to gain competitiveness, he said. Private companies have been seeking partnerships with Eletrobras in the construction of the Belo Monte and Rio Maderia hydroelectric projects, Pinguelli said. His declarations come a week after mines and energy minister Dilma Rousseff said Eletrobras would be modernized to access capital markets. Pinguelli said the new power sector model is good for the sector, and definitely abandoned the previous government's plans to privatize assets. Criticisms against the new model are really angling for an "undercover privatization", the newspaper quoted him as saying. Pinguelli also said that he is negotiating with government officials for revenues from the Itaipu hydro plant to be counted among the government's fiscal efforts to post a primary budget surplus of 4.25% of GDP. Eletrobras's contributions are enormous, considering Itaipu's revenues of 5bn- 6bn reais (US$1.7bn-2bn), he said.