Brasília: Brazil’s truck drivers’ strike is waning but remaining roadblocks are still hurting ports, notably ones in the south and particularly where soybeans delivery is concerned.
The situation is worst at Paranagua, the number two exporting port, where stocks of soybeans and soymeal for export were fast running out, a port spokesman said on Monday.
Besides slowing grain deliveries, the action has blocked meat exports and the country’s pork and poultry industry has lost 700 m reais ($241m), industry sources say.
But police arrests, court-ordered police escorts and the threat of fines saw much of the movement fade so that by the end of Monday only 18 blockades were left throughout the country, where once they had numbered more than 100. Most major routes were clear including the principal soybean corridor in Mato Grosso state.
Protests, now two weeks old, are over rising freight costs with drivers most vexed about the price of diesel.
