Pará 2030 - A world of opportunities

Governor Jatene with employees of the Caixa Economica 
in Belém, on 12/5/16. Photo: Agência Pará.

The Pará2030 is the Government of Pará project that thinks about the future for the next 13 years, aims to strengthen its productive chain and improve socioeconomic indicators, grow in 23 segments and attract new businesses. The bets revolve around agribusiness, mining, logistics, infrastructure, among others. The business card is the creation of the Ferrovia Paraense that will link the state of Mato Grosso to the port of Barcarena (PA). The project will serve to drain the agricultural production of Pará and Mato Grosso, bringing them closer to the consumer markets of Europe, Asia, North America, all through the ports of Pará.


Pará, located in the Amazon region, with only 144 municipalities and a population of 8.2 million, is the second largest state in Brazil (1.24 million square kilometers), has opened its territory to plant soybeans and wants to drain for the new railway ( Already we have the Railroad that only serves for the mining company Vale), intends to produce bran and soybean oil. When we talk about Pará, we talk about biodiversity, we talk about the Amazon that allows the production of food, oils, fibers and raw materials for medicines, even genetic use. Developing biodiversity in a production chain is a major challenge, attracting investors in a region of forests and severe environmental laws.

The entry of investors in the state caused a lot of deforestation in curbing stocks in later times, first was the question of making the region grow and then came the environmental issue to curb investors' action. A concrete fact of this observation was the decline of the timber industry, which is practically a rare activity, especially considering the scarcity of trees and the severe deforestation caused.

More, what is being sought more strongly is the creation of logistic conditions, because the rivers are still not used as they should (the Araguaia-Tocantins waterway, it is already more than 40 years and is still unknown). In the vast territorial extension of 1.24 million square kilometers, the transport routes need maintenance (about 11,800 kilometers of highways), 12,600 kilometers of underutilized waterways and 257 kilometers of railways (only one client). All this is waiting for investments.

Pará2030 presents its portfolio to attract and attract investors, starting with logistics, aquaculture and fish, tourism and gastronomy, production and verticalization of the açaí, livestock, family farming, being the largest national producer of cocoa, increasing the production of palm oil And internationalization of purchases.

Tourism and Gastronomy

No doubt the Creator of the Universe was very generous in giving us such beautiful areas of land, forests and rivers, full of opportunities. Of enviable natural beauty Pará is still unknown in the national tourism scene. This productive chain has gained more importance in recent years, but still resists greater growth, investment and development in the sector. The action that tourism needs is very focused on the government of the State, in the Capital Belém, very well used and already reaping increasing results. As for the other municipalities, these still need to be sensitized to concretize anything concrete.

In 2015, Belém was recognized by UNESCO as the Creative City of Gastronomy for having its own cuisine and its ingredients derived only from these lands. Sabor do Pará was successful in the International Gastronomy Competition in Milan, Italy. Fostering tourism in the Amazon region, strong appeal for existing nature seems to be an easy task, is not it. At first it is only thought of the dissemination and communication of the tourist attractions but, it is necessary of better logistics and accessibility to walk in these lands of continental dimensions, it needs a true policy to foment the municipalities, not only the Capital that grows year after year And while the other cities, handed over to municipal governments, are lost without knowing what the tourism chain is and what it represents. Presenting the Pará2030 believing that only the State Government with its centralized structures in the capital will make future difference the front does not give.

What to expect from Pará2030?

There are these strategies to increase GDP and increase its industrial capacity, increase exports, tourism and so on. Municipalities, entrepreneurs, now know the strategy put in place by the government, and if they stay out of these actions, if they are not sensitized, if they are only partners of specific points following the interest of the state alone, this will be difficult.

These actions of a centralizing government, without interlocutors in the municipalities, without dialogue with the managers, legislators, businessmen and society in general will make the project fail. First, Pará2030 seems to have been conceived without business participation, according to a model of its secretaries and advisors. Just like the tourism chain, which involves more than 50 economic segments, Pará2030 involves a much larger, much larger and more complex web and leads to overcoming challenges. But right now we should not be pessimistic. We must believe that everything can be realized because it is already being done on a much smaller scale in some places. Trying to do it alone, as you have been doing, will be the big mistake.