South American Trade Highway Widened with New Mega Port

• In September, a group of Brazilian farmers and officials arrived in the Peruvian fishing town of Chancay. The draw: a new Chinese mega port rising on the Pacific coast, promising to turbocharge South America's trade ties with China.
• The $3.5Bn deep water port, set to start operations late this year, will provide China with a direct gateway to the resource-rich region of South America. Over the last ten years, Beijing has unseated the United States as the largest trade partner for South America, devouring its soy, corn, and copper.
• The port, majority-owned by Chinese state-owned firm Cosco Shipping, will be the first controlled by China in South America. It will able to accommodate the largest cargo ships, which can head directly to Asia, cutting the journey time by two weeks for some exporters.
• There are hopes for Chancay to become a regional hub, both for copper exports from Peru as well as soy from western Brazil, which currently travels through the Panama Canal or skirts the Atlantic before steaming to China.
• Peru's government is planning an exclusive economic zone near the port and Cosco wants to build an industrial hub near Chancay to process raw materials that could include grains and meat from Brazil before shipping them to Asia.
• Brazil's ambassador in Peru, Clemente Baena Soares, said there were plans for meetings between officials early this year to seek to resolve logistical, sanitary, and bureaucratic hurdles at the border so Brazilian trucks can more easily reach the port.

 (Source: Reuters)