Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 9.2 billion (~USD 1.7 billion) in project financing for EPR Iguaçu S.A., the concessionaire operating Lote 6 of the Rodovias Integradas do Paraná federal highway concession, to duplicate 462.4km and carry out improvement works across 662km of highways (BR-163, BR-277, PR-158, PR-180, PR-182, PR-280, PR-483) in western and southwestern Paraná, including two new urban bypasses and three bridges (Tancredo Neves, da Amizade, and a new Brazil-Paraguay crossing). The financing was structured as project finance limited recourse — BRL 8.6 billion via a BNDES-coordinated incentivized-debenture issuance (the largest of 2025) plus a BRL 605 million Finem loan — against a total EPR Iguaçu project cost of BRL 12.7 billion through 2034. BNDES President Aloizio Mercadante framed the project as the bank's second-largest-ever national highway financing (after the Rodovia Presidente Dutra) and cited improved export-corridor access to the Port of Paranaguá for Paraná and southern Mato Grosso do Sul agricultural output.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 280 million (approx. USD 49m) in financing for WEG S.A. to renovate an existing plant and build new capacity for what BNDES describes as Brazil's largest and most modern battery energy-storage-system (BESS) factory, in Itajaí, Santa Catarina. The operation is the first contract under a joint BNDES/Finep public call for strategic-minerals and energy-transition industrial investment ("Mais Inovação"). Announced 4 February 2026; as of the announcement the financing was approved but not yet formally contracted, so this is filed as `stage: proposed` pending contracting.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 350 million (~USD 60 million) loan, drawn from the earmarked Fundo Clima (Climate Fund) concessional line, for rail freight operator Rumo S.A. to acquire six hybrid (diesel-electric) locomotives and at least 160 tank wagons. The equipment is dedicated to expanding biofuel logistics capacity — chiefly corn ethanol from the Center-West region — with BNDES and Rumo citing a 32% increase in annual biofuel-transport capacity (928,000 m³/year) versus 2024 volumes and an estimated 62,300 tonnes/year of CO2 reduction from the road-to-rail modal shift.

On 29 December 2025, Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved R$1.13 billion (~USD 205 million) in financing for Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) to modernise three industrial plants at the Usina Presidente Vargas in Volta Redonda (RJ). R$625.8 million comes through the Finem credit line for sintering-plant emissions-control upgrades (new electrostatic precipitators and bag filters) that partly reimburse investments CSN made since 2023 to satisfy a Term of Adjustment of Conduct (TAC) with Rio de Janeiro's state environmental agency (INEA). A further R$500 million comes through the BNDES Mais Inovação programme for innovative machinery, IT equipment and IoT technology services. BNDES states the financing "fortalece a cadeia produtiva nacional de equipamentos" (strengthens the national equipment supply chain), giving the operation a domestic-content-preference dimension alongside its environmental/innovation financing purpose.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved R$1.05 billion (~USD 179 million) in support for Eldorado Brasil Celulose (J&F group) to build an 86.7km private railway linking its Três Lagoas (MS) pulp mill to a terminal at Aparecida do Taboado (MS), feeding the Rondonópolis-Santos export corridor. R$1 billion is structured as BNDES's subscription of the first infrastructure debentures issued under Brazil's Law 14,801/2024, with a further R$50 million via the conventional Finem credit line. The financing reduces Eldorado's logistics costs and displaces an estimated 50,000 truck trips per year, indirectly reinforcing Brazil's cost advantage over competing pulp exporters such as Uruguay's UPM and Montes del Plata mills.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 2 billion (~USD 340 million) in support for Rumo S.A. via subscription of the full volume of debentures the company issued to fund the first 162km stage of the Ferrovia de Mato Grosso (FMT), a state railway linking Rondonópolis (MT) to a BR-070 grain terminal at Dom Aquino (MT) with capacity to move up to 10 million tonnes of grain per year. The stage is part of a planned ~743km, five-phase FMT network connecting Rondonópolis to Lucas do Rio Verde with a branch to Cuiabá, and follows two other 2025 BNDES-coordinated debenture issuances (BRL 4.8 billion raised across three issuances in 2025) financing Rumo's Mato Grosso and Malha Paulista rail investments.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 331 million (~USD 60 million) loan, drawn from the Merchant Marine Fund (Fundo da Marinha Mercante), to Tecon Rio Grande S/A — the Wilson Sons container-terminal subsidiary operating Rio Grande do Sul's only dedicated container terminal — to fund dock automation, new ship-to-shore and rubber-tyred-gantry cranes, electric yard tractors and charging infrastructure, and dredging works. The financing is intended to let the terminal accommodate larger vessels and cut ship dwell time, reinforcing Tecon Rio Grande's role as a Southern Cone logistics hub serving Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay trade.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 384.3 million (~USD 70.2 million) loan under its "BNDES Mais Inovação" innovation credit line to FS Indústria de Biocombustíveis Ltda. (FS Bioenergia), financing the country's first Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) unit at its corn-ethanol plant in Lucas do Rio Verde, Mato Grosso. The facility will compress, inject, and permanently store CO2 in the saline sedimentary reservoirs of the Parecis Basin, targeting removal of ~423,000 tonnes of CO2 per year — effectively eliminating the plant's process emissions. The loan is state-directed concessional financing for a single named domestic producer and forms part of BNDES's broader decarbonisation and carbon-market financing push aligned with the Lula government's energy-transition agenda.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 2.015 billion financing package for Companhia Riograndense de Saneamento (Corsan), the privatized state sanitation utility of Rio Grande do Sul, to expand water supply and sewage collection/treatment across 60 municipalities serving roughly 3 million residents through 2028. The package combines BRL 220 million in Ecoinvest (green-finance program) resources with two incentivized-debenture issuances (BRL 1.1 billion and BRL 695 million) whose placement BNDES coordinated as structurer rather than sole direct lender. BNDES estimates the works will generate roughly 9,816 direct and indirect jobs.

On 1 December 2025, Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 4.64 billion (~USD 850 million) financing package — split between BRL 4.24 billion in debenture subscriptions and a BRL 400 million Finem credit line — to expand, modernise and maintain 11 airports operated by Aena Brasil across four states (São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul, Pará and Minas Gerais). Congonhas Airport (São Paulo) is the largest single beneficiary at roughly BRL 2 billion. The operation is structured as non-recourse project finance, with debt service paid solely from the airports' own revenue, and was rated AAA.br by Moody's Local Brasil. Including a coordinated public offering with Santander, total financial support to Aena reaches approximately BRL 5.7 billion.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 200 million (~USD 37.5 million) in financing for Scala Data Centers S.A. — Latin America's largest sustainable hyperscale data-center platform, backed by DigitalBridge — to acquire and install machinery, equipment, IT/automation systems and materials for its data-center infrastructure. The loan is drawn under the BNDES Máquinas e Serviços credit line, which prioritises nationally manufactured goods and national services, permitting imported equipment only where no domestic equivalent is available. BNDES president Aloizio Mercadante framed the financing as part of the Lula government's Nova Indústria Brasil industrial-policy programme, aimed at the digital transformation of Brazilian industry. This is the second such operation for Scala: a prior BRL 180 million tranche in the same format was already fully disbursed.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 848 million (~USD 159 million) loan, drawn from the Fundo da Marinha Mercante (Merchant Marine Fund), to Tecon Salvador SA — the Wilson Sons container-terminal subsidiary that operates the Port of Salvador's container terminal in Bahia — to fund storage-yard expansion, new handling equipment, and infrastructure/technology modernisation works. The project targets a near-doubling of annual handling capacity, from roughly 553,000 to over 1 million TEUs, and BNDES estimates approximately 1,400 direct and indirect jobs during the implementation phase.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 117.2 million (~USD 21.7 million) loan to Lightera Latam S.A. — the Brazilian (Curitiba) arm of Lightera, a Furukawa Electric group optical-solutions company — drawn under the Funttel BNDES telecommunications technology fund. The financing supports R&D, machinery/equipment and prototyping for new optical-connectivity products: high-density fibre-optic cables, passive optical network equipment, network management/monitoring systems, and IoT/machine-learning sensing solutions for data-centre and telecom markets. BNDES president Aloizio Mercadante framed the loan as advancing the Lula government's strategic connectivity and telecommunications-competitiveness agenda; Global Trade Alert logs the same underlying operation under both a "state loan" and a "local content incentive" classification.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES is financing a BRL 3.7 billion (~USD 693 million) loan, drawn from the Fundo da Marinha Mercante (Merchant Marine Fund), to LHG Logística — the logistics arm of LHG Mining (Grupo J&F) — to build a fleet of 400 barges and 15 pushboats for transporting iron ore and manganese by inland waterway from Corumbá (Mato Grosso do Sul) roughly 2,500 km via the Paraguai/Paraná river system to the Nueva Palmira transshipment terminal in Uruguay. The vessels are being built over four years at six Brazilian shipyards; BNDES estimates the project lifts the national inland-cargo fleet by 16% and generates about 5,500 direct and indirect jobs, with 87% of funds applied in Brazil's North and Northeast regions.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 400 million in financing (BRL 320m from the Fundo Clima climate fund plus BRL 80m via the Finem line) for Lwart Soluções Ambientais SA to expand its used/contaminated lubricating-oil (Oluc) re-refining plant in Lençóis Paulista, São Paulo. The BRL 713 million total project will raise annual Oluc processing capacity by 144,000 m³, making the plant the world's second-largest by processing capacity and displacing demand for virgin base oil imports.

On 14 August 2025, BNDESPAR — the equity-investment arm of Brazil's national development bank BNDES — approved its second direct variable-income investment under its green-economy/innovation strategy: USD 74.9 million (BRL 405.3 million) in Eve Air Mobility, the Embraer subsidiary developing an eVTOL ("flying car") to be manufactured in Taubaté, São Paulo. The investment is structured as a subscription of BDRs (Brazilian depositary receipts backed by Eve's US-listed ordinary shares) in a BNDESPAR-led private offering; Eve plans to list the BDRs on B3 for local investors, with daily liquidity guaranteed by a market maker. Proceeds strengthen Eve's capital structure and fund R&D for its business plan ahead of ANAC type-certification and commercial eVTOL production.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 76.4 million in financing to Biometano São Leopoldo S.A. (Grupo Solví) to build a biomethane production plant in São Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul, with capacity of 32,400 m3/day. The credit covers about 80.1% of total project investment and is split between BRL 61.1 million from the Fundo Clima (National Climate Change Fund) and BRL 15.3 million from Finem. The plant will purify landfill biogas from the CRVR sanitary landfill (Solví Group) into biomethane, avoiding an estimated 80,000+ tonnes of CO2-equivalent per year.

On 22 July 2025, BNDESPAR — the equity-investment arm of Brazil's national development bank BNDES — approved a BRL 114 million (approx. USD 20.5 million) minority equity subscription in Grupo Santa Clara, a Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo)-based producer of special fertilizers and bioinputs founded in 1997. The deal gives BNDESPAR a 19.9% stake, implying a company valuation near BRL 570 million, and is BNDESPAR's first direct variable-income (equity) operation since the bank reactivated its equity-participation strategy in June 2025 — a decade after its last direct stock investment. Proceeds are earmarked to expand Santa Clara's biofactory in Jaboticabal (SP) and fund the group's growth plan toward BRL 1 billion in revenue by 2030.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved a BRL 100 million (~USD 18 million) financing package for BRQ Digital Solutions, funded through the BNDES Mais Inovação program, to build 17 technical accelerators for the company's proprietary generative-AI platform "Fusion BRQ." The operation is aligned with Mission 4 (Digital Transformation) of Nova Indústria Brasil, the federal government's industrial policy, and is projected to create roughly 60 new R&D jobs. The AI platform targets accelerated software development across finance, healthcare, energy, insurance, retail, agriculture and telecom client sectors.

On 23 June 2025, BNDES president Aloizio Mercadante announced that BNDESPAR — the equity-investment arm of Brazil's national development bank — would resume direct variable-income (equity) investing after roughly a decade, committing up to BRL 10 billion (~USD 1.8bn) to companies and funds focused on ecological transition, decarbonization and innovation. The commitment splits into up to BRL 5 billion in direct equity investments (open to applicants through December 2025) and up to BRL 5 billion deployed via investment funds, funded from proceeds of BNDESPAR's sale of mature-company stakes and dividend receipts rather than new fiscal outlay. The bank framed the relaunch as strengthening Brazil's capital markets while directing state capital toward green-economy and innovation targets of all company sizes.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 133.2 million (approx. USD 23.5 million) in financing to Coopavel Cooperativa Agroindustrial, a Paraná-based agricultural cooperative, toward a BRL 144.3 million total investment. The operation was structured under the Plano Safra framework using resources from the Programa para Construção e Ampliação de Armazéns (PCA) and Prodecoop. Funds expand and modernize grain-receiving and input-sale units in Três Barras and Céu Azul (Paraná), lifting combined storage capacity by roughly 19,600 tonnes and raising annual feed-ration output from 630,000 to 690,000 tonnes.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES approved BRL 131.1 million in financing to Gás Verde for two projects: the country's first green-CO2 recovery plant, in Seropédica (Rio de Janeiro), and a new biomethane production plant in Igarassu (Pernambuco). The Seropédica unit will capture and purify CO2 co-produced with biomethane, reaching approximately 100 tonnes/day; the Igarassu plant will process biogas from the Ecoparque Pernambuco sanitary landfill into 45,600 Nm3/day of biomethane. Roughly BRL 89.3 million of the total credit is drawn from the Fundo Clima (National Climate Change Fund).

On 13 May 2025, Spain's state-owned promotional bank Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) and Brazil's national development bank BNDES signed a financing agreement worth up to USD 200 million under ICO's standing "Línea ICO Canal Internacional" facility, to fund projects of Spanish-linked companies operating in Brazil. It is the third such ICO-BNDES agreement, focused on energy-efficiency, sustainable transport, industrial decarbonisation, and digitalisation projects, and extends eligibility to BNDES clients and other foreign firms with commercial ties to Spanish companies.

Brazil's national development bank BNDES contracted BRL 156 million (approx. USD 27m) in concessional financing for GreenYellow to install 16 distributed-generation solar plants (43.8 MW combined capacity) across 13 municipalities in nine Brazilian states. The loan blends BRL 126m from BNDES's Finem industrial-credit line with BRL 30m from Fundo Clima (Brazil's climate fund), carries a 20-year term, and is administered as a local-content-linked industrial-finance incentive under Global Trade Alert's state-act tracking. Announced 12 May 2025; the financed plants entered operation in H2 2025.

On 29 April 2025 Brazil's Federal Senate approved two external credit operations, both backed by a Union guarantee, authorizing the national development bank BNDES to raise a combined ~BRL 2.6 billion (~USD 460m). USD 250m (~BRL 1.4bn) comes from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to fund the BID-BNDES Program for Sustainable and Productive Recovery of MSMEs, prioritising women-led, vulnerable-area and sustainability-linked enterprises that have not yet recovered from COVID-19. JPY 30bn (~BRL 1.2bn) comes from Japan's JICA, split up to JPY 12bn (~BRL 480m) for the medical/health sector and up to JPY 18bn (~BRL 720m) for MSMEs across other sectors, at a concessional 0.01%/year interest rate, 180-month total term and 4-year grace period. Effective the same day as Senate approval; BNDES on-lends the funds via its standard repasse network of accredited financial institutions.

On 11 April 2025, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sanctioned without vetoes Lei nº 15.122/2025 ("Lei da Reciprocidade Econômica"), published in the Diário Oficial da União on 14 April 2025 and effective the next business day. The statute — Brazil's first standalone economic-retaliation framework — empowers the Executive to suspend (i) trade concessions on imports of goods and services, (ii) intellectual-property rights and obligations under Lei 12.270/2010, and (iii) concessions or commitments assumed under trade agreements, as countermeasures against unilateral measures by individual countries or economic blocs that negatively impact Brazilian international competitiveness, including environmental requirements stricter than Brazil's own. Decreto nº 12.551 of 14 July 2025 (DOU 15 July 2025) regulates the law, creating the Comitê Interministerial de Negociação e Contramedidas Econômicas e Comerciais (CINCEC), chaired by MDIC with seats for Casa Civil, Fazenda and Itamaraty (Relações Exteriores), and establishes both a fast-track provisional countermeasure procedure (CINCEC-only) and an ordinary track (≥5 months) routed through SE-CAMEX, GECEX, the CAMEX Strategic Council and a 30-day public consultation.

On 22 January 2024, Brazil's National Council for Industrial Development (CNDI), reactivated by President Lula in 2023, launched Nova Indústria Brasil (NIB) — Brazil's first comprehensive national industrial policy since the 2011-2014 Plano Brasil Maior. The framework commits roughly R$300 billion (~USD 60 billion) in financing through 2026, distributed across loans, non-refundable grants and equity participations administered by BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank), Finep (Research and Projects Financing Company) and Embrapii (Brazilian Industrial Research and Innovation Company), with quantitative targets running to 2033. The R$300bn envelope combines R$106bn announced at the first CNDI meeting in July 2023 with R$194bn redirected from existing budget lines. NIB is structured around six "missions": (1) sustainable and digital agro-industrial chains, (2) health-industrial complex resilience (medicines, vaccines, devices), (3) urban infrastructure and green mobility, (4) digital transformation and Industry 4.0 including semiconductors, (5) bioeconomy and energy transition, and (6) defence, sovereignty and national-security technologies. Two presidential decrees signed the same day establish local-content preferences for New PAC public-procurement bids and create an Interministerial Public Procurement Commission. As of February 2025, BNDES had approved R$220bn in NIB-aligned operations, and the plan has anchored downstream sectoral programmes including Brasil Semicon, the Mover automotive programme and Mais Inovação.