Brazil's government withdrew eight state-run port companies from the national privatization docket (PND), according to a decree published by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the official gazette Diário Oficial da União.
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Among the companies withdrawn was Codesp, authority at the country's busiest port, Santos.
The decision was made to accelerate bidding processes for other projects in the sector.
"There are more legal issues for state-run companies that are in a privatization process. This was delaying bidding processes for the development of terminals under private initiative," national ports department head Pedro Brito was quoted as saying in earlier reports.
The national ports department will now have 180 days to design a new management plan for the port companies, which will include defining goals and performance indicators for the state-run entities.
Along with Codesp, the following port authorities are also out of the PND: CDRJ (Rio de Janeiro state), Codeba (Bahia), CDC (Ceará), CDP (Pará), Codomar (Maranhão), Codern (Rio Grande do Norte) and Codesa (Espírito Santo).
These companies currently have combined debts of 1.5bn reais (US$868mn) and half of them closed 2007 in the red. However, Brito was previously quoted as saying that the main goal for 2008 is to have all state-run port companies pay off their debts and turn a profit.
