The new mega port of Chancay on the Pacific coast is intended to significantly shorten the transport route to Asia and boost trade. The Chinese control of the port is causing criticism.
The first Chinese-controlled port in South America has opened in Peru. China’s President Xi Jinping and Peru’s head of state Dina Boluarte inaugurated the new mega port of Chancay. It is located around 80 kilometers north of Lima on the Pacific coast. This is a “historic moment for Peru,” said Boluarte at the inauguration ceremony, which the two presidents followed virtually from the government palace in the Peruvian capital for security reasons. Chinese control of the port is not without controversy.
It is owned 60 percent by the Chinese state-owned company Cosco Shipping Ports and 40 percent by the Peruvian company Volcan Compañía Minera. A total of 3.5 billion US dollars (3.3 billion euros) will be invested in the construction of the port facility. In the first expansion phase, around one million containers can be handled per year.
Cosco will establish a direct route to Shanghai. This shortens the passage to around 23 days. So far, ships from Peru mostly travel to China via Manzanillo in Mexico and Long Beach in the USA. This means the crossing takes around 40 days. The port will serve to promote development between China and Latin America, Xi said in an article in the Peruvian newspaper El Peruano.
The trade volume between China and Peru has doubled to $33 billion since the free trade agreement was signed in 2009. Over the past decade, Beijing has invested around $24 billion in mining and energy projects in the South American country.
The Peruvian Congress passed a law granting Cosco exclusive use of the port. “This shows that China is not building a port for the Peruvians, but a Chinese port in Peru. “That’s a big difference,” wrote Argentine logistics expert Agustín Barletti in the newspaper “El Cronista.”
Similar articles
