China wants to build a railway to cross South America. A corridor meant to shorten shipping routes
Railway in Brazil Photo: Nelson Almeida / AFP / Profimedia
Brazil negotiates with China the construction of a railway to connect the big Chancay port in Peru, also built by the Chinese with the Brazilian regions, said Brazilian Minister of Simone Tebet, Reuters reports.
“They are very interested in helping Brazil to destroy the country with railways,” Tebet told the Brazilian publication Carta Capital.
President XI Jinping is expected to participate in the inauguration of Chancay Port in November. The port project, of $ 1.3 billion, is the largest investment of Beijing in South America being part of the project of its trade and influence on this continent.
Tebet said that a Brazilian delegation met last month with representatives of a Chinese state railway company to discuss the potential route to connect Brazil, given that Chancay could reduce the distance of the sea to China by at least 10,000 kilometers.
Initially, the Chinese took into account a route through the Amazon region, but the Brazilian government rejected the idea due to the presence of the equatorial forest and indigenous peoples, said Tebet.
“They understood in the end, after a complete analysis, and now Idea is to draw a southern route,” said minister, specifying that this railway will pass through sour and aceins, reaching Bahia and making the connection with the rail for East Integration (Fiol).
Fiol, which is still under construction, will extend 1,527 kilometers from Figueiropolis in aceins to the Ilheus port in Bahia, on the Atlantic coast.
Tebet admitted that the project will ask for time until its materialization, but said that it will be crucial for the economic desolation of the poorer regions inside Brazil. “We have been talking for five years, maybe eight, to see such a completed project,” said the Brazilian official.
