Lima (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Peru and Cosco Shipping, a Chinese state-owned construction company, have settled a dispute over the business model to be put in place for the Port of Chancay. The company is granted the exclusive right to operate the port after it is inaugurated in a few months.
The agreement came just as Peruvian President Dina Boluarte arrived in the People's Republic of China, where she will meet Xi Jinping on Friday.
Plans for the mega-port in Chancay, which is located 80 kilometres north of Lima, goes back 16 years. The turning point came in 2019 when Cosco Shipping acquired 60 per cent stake in the company that was building the port, estimated at US$ 1.3 billion.
Earlier this year, however, as the work neared completion, Peruvian government lawyers filed a lawsuit challenging the exclusivity granted to the Chinese company, saying the facility should be available to other container handling companies as well.
Chinese lenders and Peruvian industrial groups harshly criticised the move, claiming that practically all other ports in the South American country have exclusive operators.
Now, with Peruvian authorities taking a step back, the impasse should be settled.
The port of Chancay is one of the largest investments in Latin America under the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping’s “new silk road”.
Even ultra-large ships, some of which can reach 400 metres in length and carry more than 18,000 containers at any one time, will be able to dock port.
Until now, only two Pacific Ocean ports in the Americas, both in North America, could handle such giants of the sea: Long Beach, in the United States, and Manzanillo, Mexico.
This meant that much of the trade between Asia and South America was indirect. Chancay, which is designed to handle up to one million containers per year, should reduce transport costs and travel times, potentially turning it into the "Shanghai of South America".
The first part of the mega port is expected to be inaugurated in November 2024, when Lima hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that promotes trade between Pacific Ocean countries. It is expected to be fully operational in early 2025.
Chile, Ecuador, and Colombia could also benefit from the facility, but Chancay is also looking at Brazil with great interest.
Various business groups are pushing for the construction of a road between the port and the Brazilian state of Acre, to speed up access to maritime trade with Asia, at the cost of more harm to the Amazon rainforest.
