Chile Forum

Chile, Brazil, Bolivia to open next November Mercosur bi-oceanic corridor

Presidents from Chile, Brazil and Bolivia will be inaugurating next November a Mercosur bi-oceanic corridor that will link the three countries, connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific oceans.

“We agreed with Brazilian president Lula da Silva, Bolivia’s Evo Morales to inaugurate next November the 4.000 kilometres link or Oceanic Corridor”, said Chilean president Sebastián Piñera during a meeting with foreign journalist.

The corridor is set to link the port of Santos, Brazil, on the Atlantic with the ports of Iquique and Arica belonging to Chile on the Pacific, added Piñera, a huge step for integration and to promote trade.

“This is an example of how countries when they join efforts they are capable of overcoming divisions from the past and together confront the challenges of the future”, said Piñera.

Chile and Bolivia since 1978 do not have formal diplomatic relations because they could not agree on a sea outlet for landlocked Bolivia. A strip of land leading to the Pacific was lost by Bolivia, when in alliance with Peru they attacked Chile in the second half of the XIXth. century.

This however has not impeded the conclusion of a very ambitious project which basically makes Brazil, among the leading economies of the world, and Mercosur main associate, together with Chile, and Bolivia, bi-oceanic countries.

Steph wrote:It will certainly be interesting to see what impact this has on Bolivia and their economy, hopefully good things to come from this for them.

greg~judy wrote:And they won't need things like the recent strike in Potosi - better keep the highway open...

Over the last two to three years momentum has been growing with a project to build a low level rail tunnel through the Andes between Argentina and Chile. It is estimated that the construction will cost some US$3 billion and when built that the railway will carry some 80% of the freight between Argentina, Brazil and Chile. An 8 member consortium of international companies has been formed to carry out the project and both governments have agreed to support it.

Kind of ironic that SA is building continent wide infrastructure while US infrastructure is deteriorating and reverting to undeveloped world status.

...a project to build a low level rail tunnel through the Andes between Argentina and Chile

greg~judy wrote:

...a project to build a low level rail tunnel through the Andes between Argentina and Chile

Isn't that projected to run thru (screw-up) the Valle Elqui

Chile outlines conditions for a possible Bolivian access to the Pacific

Chile is willing to cooperate with a sea-outlet for landlocked Bolivia but will not cede sovereignty because “we will never accept something that divides the country in two”, said the Chilean Foreign Affairs minister Alfredo Moreno.

Chile will “analyze all the proposals for a (Bolivian) better access to the sea (Pacific Ocean), but will always guard the interests of Chile, and that interest will never be to have the country divided in two”, said Moreno during an interview Sunday with Chile’s national television.

“Sovereignty is not on the table. President Sebastian Piñera has been crystal clear on the issue: what we are after is to collaborate with Bolivia on an issue that has many years and that is to help its access to the sea”, added Moreno.

The Chilean chancellor was referring to press reports a few days before Piñera took office saying that he stopped former outgoing president Michelle Bachelet from signing an agreement with the administration of Evo Morales by which Chile ceded a non sovereignty coastal enclave to Bolivia in the northern region of Tarapaca.

According to La Tercera, the Pacific Ocean access for Bolivia would have been north of Iquique, which is 1.800 kilometres from the capital Santiago. According to the published version Piñera rejected the initiative because he did not share “the idea to hand the enclave (to Bolivia) given all the migratory, free transit, administrative and infrastructure problems it would create for Chilean authorities”.

“The President does not believe viable ‘to divide’ Chilean territory in two”, published La Tercera.

Bolivia lost its access to the sea following on the Pacific War 1879/1884 in alliance with Peru against Chile. Since then the two countries have tried unsuccessfully (through diplomacy) to recover Bolivia’s access to the Pacific through north Chilean territory.

Chile and Bolivia have been discussing since 2006 a 13 points agenda that includes La Paz demand for access to the Pacific.

The controversy surfaced again last October when President Evo Morales and his Peruvian counterpart, Alan Garcia, signed a deal giving Bolivia a 99-year lease to four square kilometres of desolate shoreline near Peru's southern port of Ilo.

“This opens the door for Bolivians to have an international port, to the use of the ocean for global trade and for Bolivian products to have better access to global markets” President Morales said during the ceremony with Garcia.

According to the Bolivian minister for planning and development, Viviana Caro, direct access to the ocean will cut the distance goods have to travel to Asian markets by 40%. Most of those products are natural resources such as zinc, tin and silver, with which Bolivia is well-endowed.