Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to Rumo's fourth quarter 2019 results conference call, which will be led by Mr. Ricardo Lewin, Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer, after Mr. Beto Abreu, Rumo's CEO, gives his message. We would like to inform you that this event is recorded and all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the company's presentation. After Rumo's remarks, there will be a question and answer session for investors and industry analysts conducted by Mr. Ricardo Lewin. At that time, further instructions will be given. Should any participant need assistance during this call, please press star zero to reach the operator. The audio and slideshow of this presentation are available through live webcast at ir.rumolog.com. The slides can also be downloaded from the webcast platform.
Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements will be made under the Safe Harbor of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1996. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Rumo's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Rumo and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. I'll turn the conference over to Mr. Beto Abreu to give his statement, followed then by Mr. Ricardo Lewin. Mr. Beto, you may please begin the conference.
Dear investors and stakeholders. It is with great pleasure that I share with you my review on Rumo's 2019 performance as well as our path going forward. In 2019, we achieved great results. Our volume grew 6.6%, and our EBITDA grew 10%. Net income was roughly three times higher than 2018, and we generated BRL 688 million cash before funding and amortization. We also had important achievements in 2019. We won the bid for North-South Railway and closed an operational bid with Ferroeste, initiatives that expand even more our influence area. The revenue of Malha Paulista that sustain our long-term strategy also advanced with the approval from TCU was used by the court. Besides that, our double stack railcar operation started in the containment segment. This was my first year as Rumo's CEO.
Now is the time to look forward at all the opportunities that we still have to improve our efficiency and increase our business competitiveness. I will explore this in our next Keystone day, where we will present details to the market on our growth strategy for the upcoming years. In 2020, uncertainties regarding international demand for grains may create greater market volatility in the short term. However, the long-term fundamentals of our business remain unchanged. We believe in Brazil the business potential, any decrease of the demand for grain in the global market. Recovery of economic activity in Brazil and the expansion of our operation in the state of Goiás in the west region of Paraná allows volume growth and cargo diversification. We remain focused on safety, executing our investment plan with extremely capital discipline, seeking for creating even more value for our shareholders.
I conclude by renewing my commitment alongside with Rumo's teams to be a better logistics industry for the country in order to foster the development of domestic production and to approach areas with different levels of industrialization. All in all, we are Brazil in motion. Now I turn the floor over to Ricardo Lewin, who will conduct our earnings presentation. Thank you.
Thank you, Beto. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. First, I'd like to point out that likewise previous quarter, 2019 results presented in our earnings release refer to the pro forma figures reflecting the impact of IFRS 16 to guarantee a fair comparison. On page three of the release, the impact on each line item of our income statement is summarized. As per slide number three, our consolidated results consider the effects of the Central Network, new name for the North-South Railway. The effects of its consolidation on 2019 results are stated on page four of our release and comprise BRL 2.8 billion, referring to the accounting for the auction amount as a right of use to be restated in accordance with contractual parameters and BRL 2.7 billion as new liabilities.
BRL 0.7 million reduction in EBITDA due to the operating expenses and BRL 121 million reduction in net income. Since the site costs, we have depreciation and financial expenses over concession amounts. To facilitate the comparison of figures, page four shows a chart that considers fourth quarter 2019 and 2019 figures excluding the Central Network effect.
It's worth mentioning that all other sections of release report the figures including the Central Network consolidation. On the next slide, I'd like to share the current status of the Central Network. As previously mentioned, the Central Network brings opportunities to diversify cargo and expands our operations. We already started the works required to make the Central Network operational. As foreseen in our long-term guidance, investments in 2020 will increase compared to 2019, mainly due to investments in this Network. We are advancing with trade negotiations to transport grains after the conclusion of terminals, which should occur during 2021. Even before that, we may start to operate with containers running north. On the next slide, we will take a look at our operational results in 2019. In 2019, our volumes grew 6.6%, reaching 60 billion RTKs, of which we highlight fertilizer volume grew 90%, boosted by north operation volumes.
Container transport grew by 20%, and corn volume rose by 19%, offsetting soybean drop. 2019 presented an atypical seasonality because of market conditions and operational constraints, which restricted our ability to capture additional volumes. In the first half of the year, we were impacted by operational constraints due to landslides at Santo Antonio, and an unfavorable scenario for soybean demand, which reflected the global supply and demand dynamics. In the second half of the year, the anticipated corn harvest ensured positive volumes already in June and allowed good performance for Rumo until November. Market performance in the period exceeded our capacity building, thus resulting in market share loss and low corn availability in December. Moving to the next slide, we will discuss our financial performance.
Rumo EBITDA, excluding Central Network, rose 10.1% in 2019 to BRL 3.85 billion, and the consolidated margin stood at 54.2%, one percentage point higher than in 2018, reflecting the company's positive operating leverage. Consolidated yield rose 1%, highlighting the 5.5% yield increase in south operations. This result reflects the effect of seasonality seen throughout the year, with crop anticipated in January, which resulted in lower soybean volumes in April and May, and operational constraints which restricted volumes in February and March, months which historically record better yields. Variable costs increased in line with net revenues, driven by gains of 5.5% on fuel consumption, offsetting higher costs with terminals and the payment of the take-or-pay fees in February. Fixed costs rose only 1.2% as a result of the company's scalability and cost management efforts. We will now take a look at the financial results and net income.
In 2019, we recorded a net financial expense of BRL 1.2 billion, 12.4% lower than in 2018. A reduced average cost of debt and the continuous liability management process contributed to this result. On the other hand, charges over leaving increased due to the inclusion of interest rates on concession installments of the Central Network. The net income totaled BRL 786 million in 2019. Excluding the Central Network, net income more than tripled and reached BRL 907 million in 2019. Cash generation before funding and amortizations totaled BRL 688 million in 2019, reflecting EBITDA increase added to improved financial results. On the next slide, we will take a look at our debt. Rumo's indebtedness came in line at 1.8 times pro forma debt EBITDA. Moving on to the next slide, let's discuss main ESG aspects in 2019.
In 2019, we improved our energy efficiency, reducing our unit emission by 7%. In addition, due to our increased capacity, we prevented cargoes from being carried by trucks, a transportation mode which emits on average five times more carbon dioxide than the railway. We now compose the B3, the Brazilian Stock Exchange CO2 Index Portfolio, an indicator of companies with good management practices in GHG emission. We report to the Carbon Disclosure Project, CDP, the global organization that leads the reporting system of environmental information. In 2020, our challenge is to advance our engagement with the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the ISE B3 Sustainability Index. In the social aspect, as our railway runs over 500 Brazilian municipalities, Rumo is aware of its relevant role in the communities where it operates.
In 2019, we won the Social Responsibility Award from IstoÉ Dinheiro Magazine, and the SDG stamp for the project Contêiner da Fraternidade, that positively impacted the community surrounding our railway tracks. Concerning governance, Rumo complies with the B3 practices. Also, in 2019, we reviewed our code of ethics, which was spread throughout the employees by training hours. Moving on to the next slide, we'll take a look at the soybean market perspectives. 2020 soybean perspectives in Brazil, according to CONAB and AgRural, indicate a record production with 9% increase. Recent data from USDA point a raise of 2 million tons on Brazil exports. On the other hand, other forecasts indicate a reduction mainly due to market uncertainties, which contributes to a volatile soybean scenario. As per USDA, the raise on China imports reflects a better consumption due to the recovery of the swine herd in China.
In the U.S., soybean crops should decrease by roughly 23 million tons, which should limit the raise on exports, even with the evolving on trade deal. Considering this scenario, we believe that with higher logistics capacity and improved operational performance, the beginning of the harvest may result in good volumes when the commodity price increases and there's a positive demand for efficient logistics. Now, moving on to the next slide, we'll take a look at the corn market. Preliminary figures of CONAB and AgRural indicate a slightly lower corn production, with exports also shrinking due to higher domestic consumption. It's worth mentioning that despite reduced exports versus 2019, the figure projected is much higher than in 2018. Considering that this year, the soybean harvest began in a regular period, corn exports should be concentrated between July and December.
Thus, with higher railway capacity and corn volumes concentrated in the second half of the year, there should be room to regain the market share lost in the second half of 2019, thus enabling to higher volumes levels. To conclude my presentation, on the next slide, I would like to present our 2020 guidance. For 2020, due to a scenario of greater volatility, we increased our guidance ranges. Thus, Rumo forecasts a raise of 15% on EBITDA, considering the average point of BRL 4.4 billion, which includes Central Network costs totaling BRL 90 million, 10% on volumes, also considering the average point of 66 billion RTKs. Investments from BRL 2.6 billion-BRL 3.1 billion in line with our long-term plan, and considering the investments required to finish the works at the Central Network in order to make it operational. This concludes my presentation.
I thank you all for participating in our conference call. I remain at your disposal for the Q&A session.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session for investors and analysts. If you have a question, please press star one on your telephone. We kindly ask you that in case you have more than one, please announce it in the beginning and ask it one by one to ensure conference flow. If you prefer to send your question over the Internet, click on the Ask the Speaker button on the webcast platform. If your question is answered during the session, you may remove it from the line by pressing star two. The questions will be answered in the order they are received. We ask that you use the handset when asking the question. In order to maintain excellent sound quality, please stand by while we collect the questions. Our first question comes from Josh Milberg, Morgan Stanley.
Hey, Beto. Hey, Lewin. Thank you very much for the call. I wanted to ask if you could comment a little on how you're seeing the 2020 yield scenario and on to what degree, if any, the paving of BR-163 is a factor there. When we had spoken to you earlier in the year, I think your message had been that something on the order of a 5% increase could be achievable this year, helped by more soybeans and a better distribution of volume. I just wanted to see if that type of scenario still makes sense, and also if you could touch on how you're progressing in closing the take-or-pay contracts too. That would be great.
Hi, Josh. Thank you very much for participating of the call. There's a bunch of questions here. Let me try to organize a bit. Let's start with BR-163.
Here. The pavement of BR-163 clearly allowed increase of capacity in the Northern Arc. Okay? Investors are asking us if there is evidence that this price of truck transportation fell because of the 163. I think this is a very important point when people talk about the pavement. In our opinion, if you compare prices during the year for previous year, there's no evidence that the freight cost went down because of the pavement. Okay? Usually, what we see in the market is that truck drivers, they price the transportation based on market opportunity, instead of on the basis of their costs. Okay? As well as prices went down in the fourth quarter for the 163, it happened the same thing in December for Santos. Why? Because the market was getting weaker in December.
Additional information that is important here is that Imea data suggests that the freight prices are already going up in January, even before the peak of the harvest, which is expected to be February. A summary of all the information that I am giving you is that the capacity increased, it is clear. Going north. For this year, 2020, first thing, there is no indication that the freights are going down because of the pavement. Another thing that is important about BR-163 and the Northern Arc is that the Northern Arc last year exported around 34 million tons of grains. If you take into consideration the grains that left Mato Grosso through Northern Arc, the volumes increased from 15 to 22 million tons.
Splitting these volumes, not only the volume, but the reason what happened for soybean and corn, it is important to clarify that Rumo did not lose market share for soybean. Okay? We could have done better because of operational constraints, but we haven't lose market share. For corn, what happened was that Rumo lost market share, not for the Northern Arc, but for the other logistic providers. We did our job in corn. We increased 21% our transported volumes. What happened is that corn exports grew a lot, and the 21% that we did was not enough to catch up with the market. Okay? So this is a brief summary of the effects of the pavement of 163 and the Northern Arc. If you have more doubt, you can ask. I will try to go through the other points here. 2020 yields.
Usually, we do not disclose the yields. I think from our guidance, you can take some conclusions here. We are saying in our guidance that if you consider the midpoint of EBITDA and volume, we are saying that EBITDA is increasing 15%, while our volumes are increasing 10%. We are every single year reducing our main variable costs between 3% and 5%, that's fuels. As you can see in our results, we are increasing fixed costs much less than inflation. By here, you can conclude that, yes, there will be some good improvement, but a huge part of our gains are focused on increasing competitiveness that we want to have, and we do have, as I always tell the sell side and the investor, we are a scale business, so we are every single year reducing variable cost by gaining efficiency and by looking fixed cost.
From this, that we will improve our results. Now, if I'm not wrong, you asked about the take-or-pay. Yeah. This, Josh, is something that we don't disclose the percentage of volume on your take-or-pay, and also the poor strategic reasons. Okay? One thing that I can tell you is that the percentage of take-or-pay is lower than the same period of previous year. As you know, the uncertainty that I talked during the presentation on exported volumes, increases the likelihood of paying take-or-pay, what make the trading companies less willing to sign this kind of agreements. Okay? This is not bad news for us. I always said that we are not signing take-or-pay at any cost. We know about our competitiveness. What we see is that there is a possibility of better grain market exports. Although you're seeing the market, people talking about volatility.
This is true, if what you saw recently about USDA talking about the volumes of export was a good number. Volatility has the two sides. You have good opportunity here. More than this, Josh, there is an expectation for this year of better seasonality for us, with hopefully no operational constraint in the beginning of the year, what we had in 2019. This is a moment with higher prices that can help to offset any risk or volatility that you have this year. Sorry for being a long answer here. Hopefully, I answered everything you asked me.
That was a very thorough response. I have a few other doubts, but I'll go to the back of the line.
Okay?
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Josh.
Excuse me. Our next question comes from Rogério Araújo, UBS.
Hi, guys. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions here. The first is on volume. According to our estimates, this volume guidance, it implies a growth between two and four and a half million tons for 2020. If you look at CONAB expectations for Mato Grosso production of grains, it expects it to increase by 1 million tons in 2020. If you could talk a little bit about how this extra volume, where this extra volume will come from. If incremental fertilizer, how much is grain? How much is any other cargo, if there is any other relevant cargo to be transported? This is the first question. Thank you.
Hi, Rogério. Thank you very much for the question, and obviously by the presence here in the call, and thank you for the good question. There's clearly an improvement in market share in Mato Grosso compared, not only Mato Grosso, but I'll explain here, but compared to 2019. First point, very easy to understand. Remember that we had some capacity constraints, let's call operational constraint in the first half of the year. Remember that we have the problem in the hills in Santos during the first quarter, and we lost capacity. As well as we had some problems in the second half of the year, because the product exports of corn grew much more than our capacity and was very concentrated in a small portion of the year. Okay? As I told you, hopefully we'll not have these operational issues in the first semester during the soybean.
We can gain a relevant share here in volumes. In the second half, what we are seeing is that we will not have the participation of corn. The seasonality seems to be better for corn. We invested last year. We have been investing every single year. We'll gain capacity and we'll be able to take a higher piece of this market. This is the first point here, that we are gaining volumes and market share, okay? Also, you talked about fertilizer, and we are increasing something around 50% in fertilizer for next year. In 2019, we did 1.6 million tons of fertilizer from Santos to Rondonópolis. We're increasing to 2.4 million tons, aligned with what we have been promising during last years.
Finally, one other thing that's relevant, that it seems that the sugar market is improving, and we have something around 1.5 million-2 million tons of sugar, additional to what we had previous year. What we are talking is a clear gain of market share related when we compare to 2019.
Yeah. Thanks. It's very clear. My second question is on February volume. Any way that the coronavirus could impact the logistics to China, the shipping to China? How is February volume? Is it already picking up? Is soybean already started to be exported? Should we expect a normal month now, or should any one-off impact have an effect here? Thank you.
You know, Rogério, I was supposed someone will ask me about coronavirus, but it's very difficult to answer something related to coronavirus. We are not feeling any effect of coronavirus up to now in the business. Okay? What you may see in the beginning of the year, is a difference between the volume exported compared to 2019. Okay? Remember that in 2019, the volumes were anticipated, and in 2020, the volumes will be exported in the usual pacing. Okay? This is not related to coronavirus or anything, but this is a comparison between 2019 and this year. It feels very difficult to say if coronavirus has some impact in our year. By the way, the same related to the commercial agreement between U.S. and China. It's everything very unclear, and we have not been feeling anything regarding these issues up to now.
Yeah, very clear. Thanks so much. Have a great weekend.
Thank you, and you too.
Once again, to ask question, press star one. Please stand by once again while we collect the questions. Our next question comes from Roberta Vecchione, Citibank.
Hi, everyone. I have two quick questions here. First, if you could remind us there's some more green space left on the southern trench of North-South. Secondly, can you give us an idea on the need for more rolling stocks for this year, please? Thank you.
Roberta, I heard very well your second question, that was the rolling stock. I could not listen about the North-South. What you want to know about North-South?
Yeah. The first one was if there's more green space left on the southern trench of North-South, or we stay to be duped.
Roberta, the calls are very good, anyway, let me answer how North South is. If I don't answer your question, please feel free to do again the question. North South is going very well. Okay? Remember that we are starting the CapEx from the south, Esmeraldas, to going north. We want to reach, as soon as possible, the south of Goiás and make this piece operational, okay? Be cause it's where you'll find a lot of grains, a huge amount of grains. Just giving you some idea here that the states of Goiás and Tocantins, these markets have potential today of about 15 million tons of grains. In some studies, we saw that in 2028, these two markets can reach to 25 million tons.
We are at full speed in CapEx, and we are working to initiate the transportation of grains and containers for the north as soon as possible. There is another question. It's about rolling stock for 2020. You know, you are not the first person to ask about the rolling stock for 2020. We know that there was something the market people say that we canceled a contract on rolling stock. This is not true, okay? On the contrary, we didn't announce this because we don't think that that's relevant. If you follow Greenbrier calls, you will listen for in the last call that they made with the market, they announced a long-term contract for rolling stock with them. Okay? The conditions are not public, but there is a long-term contract with them that allow us to guarantee the production at very good prices.
We have a long-term contract also with former GE, current Wabtec. They supply for us our brand new locomotive. The need of rolling stock is everything okay? Th ere is no change in our long-term plans.
Okay, thank you. Very clear.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Once again, to ask a question, press star one. Our next question comes from Josh Milberg, Morgan Stanley.
Hey, Lewin. Thank you for the follow-up. Just one other area of questions I had was related to your cost, and if you could just give some color on some of the big cost movements that we saw in the quarter. One thing was a big move down in your G&A and also in your fixed costs in the Northern operation and also a large reduction of your other operating costs, which was, I think, due in part to a sale of some service units. Really just wanted to understand how sustainable that move was. I think it's something that also the response is partially embedded in your guidance. If you could give some color there, that would be helpful.
Okay. Just a brief overview on costs. You asked about G&A fixed costs. I always like to reinforce that every single year, we are reducing our variable cost also by increasing efficiency. Remember that we have every new year, BRL 1 billion in fuel consumption. We have been able to reduce the unitary consumption of fuel by 3%-5% every single year. We will continue to do this. Regarding fixed costs, you know us very well. You know that we have a huge discipline on costs. Fixed costs increased only by 1.2% this year, much less than inflation. The doubt may be here that if this will be recurrent. My point here is that, first of all, we have been doing investments that bring as consequence the fixed cost reductions.
This is one thing that's important. The other is that we will keep following fixed costs very closely. This is not a number that we disclose to the market. Be sure that we'll keep all our efforts to keep the growth of fixed costs much below the inflation. Repeating what I always tell investors in our meetings, we are a scale business. We need to keep diluting fixed costs, because this makes us more competitive. For us, competitiveness is the name of the game, okay? Finally, there is a last question about G&A in the fourth quarter. Although the results were good this year, in my opinion, we increased 10% EBITDA. Okay? That was below our internal strong goals.
There is a small reversion in terms of G&A that are what we call the PPR, but the bonuses, internal bonuses of the management of the company.
Okay, Lewin. That was good color. I can take some of my questions offline. We can speak afterward. Are you able to disclose, and I don't think it's a big item, but are you able to disclose the exact impact of the sale of the unprofitable service units in your container business?
Yes. This is quite irrelevant, Josh, in terms of value, okay? Let's take exactly the value here. Let's see if you have other questions, I can take this for you.
Okay. No, I think you covered my other questions. Thank you very much.
As a reminder, if any analyst or investor would like to pose a question, please press star one. Our next question comes from Alexandre Falcão, HSBC.
Guys, good afternoon. Sorry if this question was already asked. I had some trouble in some questions. If they are, it's fine. I just wanted to comment on, now that the BR-163 is finished, do you think you could see any sort of price competition there or volume competition, or there's something that you're not really competing for the same volumes? Second one is related to Safrinha. You're beginning to see that it'd be like poor climatic reasons and the planting was not really ideal here, and we could see a decrease in yields. Can you elaborate both of them and how they both reconnect with your guidance? Thank you.
Falcão, thank you for the question. You loved my beautiful speech on the BR-163. I don't know if I can repeat it like the first time, but I will do it. I will try my best here.
No, it's all good.
No, I hear you Falcão. I'm just kidding.
Yeah.
I'm just kidding. Let me talk about the BR-163. We know that the BR-163 brought additional capacity, increased the capacity to Northern Arc. Okay? What I told you sometime was that people are asking a lot if this decrease in prices or truck prices logistic, was because of the paving of 163. What I said before is that there's no evidence that the cost went down because of the pavement. Usually what happens is that the truck drivers, they don't care about their cost, but they feel very quickly changes in the market. Prices go up and prices go down depending on their sensitivity, if the market is good or bad. Market opportunity bring higher or lower prices. Okay? Prices went down, and we give an idea of prices from Rondonópolis to Aratu, went down to BRL 140.
It's a low price, but was a tendency that happened every single year, where in the end of the year, the logistic market is weak, so prices go down. Even now in January, we are seeing an improvement of truck prices even before the peak of the harvest. Okay? What BR-163 is already bringing is for sure more capacity. What I also emphasized, Falcão, in the first answer, was that people are asking if the BR-163 pavement that improved the Northern Arc market share at the end of 2019. What I told was that the volumes of grains that went from Mato Grosso to the Northern Arc through BR-163 or other ways, increased 7 million tons from 15 to 22 million tons. Okay? Why this happened? First, if you talk about soybean, Rumo did not lose market share for the Northern Arc, okay?
We could have done better. Remember, we had some capacity constraints in the first half of the year. We didn't lose market share for the Northern Arc for soybean. For corn, we did lose market share, it was not for the Northern Arc. It was for the rest of logistics providers because we are at the top of our capacity, even though we increased 21% in volumes. Okay? What happened is that the corn market was big and concentrated. The exports were concentrated in a few months, and we didn't have capacity to catch up with the market. This is my overview about BR-163 and the Northern Arc, okay? What is expected to happen in 2020 regarding the BR-163, the export through the Northern Arc and our capacity, is basically that in 2020, we still provide more capacity because of our investments. Okay?
The grain exports will not grow as much as last year by what we are seeing. Okay? The market will have the opportunity to choose logistic solutions based on competitiveness and not based on availability, as it was the case of last year, because we are at the top of our capacity. This is what will happen in 2020. The second question, could you repeat the second question, Falcão, please?
It's regarding Safrinha. There are reports that the planting was not optimal, if you compare it to last year, where the planting and harvest, everything was perfect. Is there a concern at all that you could see lower volumes from Safrinha? I just wanted to know if it's something that is in your radar.
Falcão, when you talk about soybean, at this point of the year, we have much more view.
Yes.
It's better because the harvest is here. When we talk about corn, it's much more difficult to foresee at this time of the year. Okay? The expectations that we have, that were brought by the consultancy companies that we hire, it will be quite similar, as I talked in the presentation, to previous year. Remember that previous year was by far the best crop that we have in year, in the history, actually, in Brazilian corn crop. It was more than 50% higher than 2018. If you compare to 2019, it can be flat, but if you compare to 2018 and the history, it's much, much higher. Okay? Again, it's always too early to talk about corn.
Just confirming, your guidance, you're using more or less same values than last year, or you have a reduction for corn specifically?
The point here that what we foresee for our guidance, that we have less exports of corn. Okay? However, the seasonality of exports will be better for us. Why? Because we will not have the anticipation of corn, and it will be better distributed by the second half of the year, as usually it is. Okay? This allow us to transport a bit more without any constraint of capacity. That is foreseen in our guidance.
Fantastic. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Bruno Amorim, Goldman Sachs.
Hi, everyone. I have two questions, if I may. First of all, very quickly on concession renewal. Any update you can provide us with on the timing? I know this is something that, it's to some extent out of your control, but any update would be welcome. Second, on the prospects for volumes from a long-term perspective, we have been discussing a lot of short-term issues, the coronavirus, the swine fever, BR-163. We live in a country where we lack infrastructure, more medium, long-term, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's the main reason why you are so positive and you have a guidance for close to 10% volume growth for the next few years.
What are the key metrics you look at, that you get comfortable with this lack of infrastructure that we have in Brazil, connecting the region where we produce the grains and the main ports. Could you please share your rationale behind the 10% CAGR for the upcoming years? That would be the second question. Thank you very much.
Hi, Bruno. Thank you for both questions. I was missing the first one, so let me try to update here. As always, it is very difficult to come up with an accurate deadline for the final signature. You saw our Secretary of Transportation saying that very soon we will be able to sign. As Rumo, I cannot give you a date for signature. What I can tell is that.
Close.
We are very close, and ANTT is doing a very good job advancing with the adjustment in the concession agreement, and both parties are working very hard to have it as soon as possible. Regarding the second question about the long-term volumes, despite of all issues that we have. I understand, Bruno, what you're saying. Our long-term, and this is not only about guidance, it's our long-term view on this sector, on the agriculture in Brazil, on the consumption of the world, isn't changing. Okay? We think that all these issues in China, coronavirus is still unclear, I think, for everybody. The swine fever, as you know, the consequence of swine fever for consumption of soybean seems to be positive as it will improve the way they are feeding the pigs will improve. That's very positive view for us.
In some ways, we do have positive views on the future of consumption of grains in the world. Regarding supply, Brazil is for sure the local that will feed this growth of protein in China and the rest of the world, Mato Grosso is the right place to be and the place where you still have growth of area to be planted and efficiency in the growth of grains. I think where you want to reach, in what we are basing the 10% growth, basically there are two points here. We will have growth of the crop, we foresee this, and yes, we will have growth market share from Rumo in the next years. Okay?
We are not disclosing how much this growth. I think that you can, by the public numbers that you have from CONAB, from USDA, and our long-term guidance, I think you can easily reach to this growth of market share. These are the two drivers of growth of transportation. What you said, the poor infrastructure in Brazil is something that help us in increasing our volumes transported.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. That concludes the question and answer session for investors and analysts. Now I'd like to turn the floor over to Mr. Ricardo Lewin for his final considerations.
Well, in the name of Rumo team, I would like to thank the presence of all the investors and analysts in this call. We are working hard in the company to have a very good year for us and for our employees and for our investors. Don't forget that in March we will have Cosan Day, both in Brazil, I think the 9th of March in Brazil, and 13th in N.Y., which you can hear about all the companies from Cosan group and about Rumo. Cosan Day we will be able to give more details in the project and hopefully come with more news. Okay? Thank you very much to all.