Port Renewal on Peru's Coast and Rivers
Smaller Ports Spread throughout the Andean Country Get Investment
Apr 28, 2009
A new and improving Callao is not the only thing happening to Peru’s ports as local and foreign investment starts rebuilding a chain of facilities along the coast and the country’s river-rich Amazon basin.
Yehude Simon's Statement has Government Leading the Way
One of the signs that things are going to happen in the ports sector was Prime Minister Yehude Simon's statement the government was going to prioritise them, especially their concessioning. "The ports, including river ports, are going to have a much more important role for the government," he told Gestion, a leading business newspaper last December.
"Within a short time we are going to accelerate some things in order to have better infrastructure, including putting our ports onto a higher level," he said "We will have greater dynamism in the concessioning of ports."
This has already happened. Paita in Northern Peru has been concessioned and the national ports authority, APN, expects to award two port concessions during this year.
One will be San Martin in Pisco by the middle of this year which has a first stage investment of US$75 million the second San Juan de Marcona with an investment of US$170 million.
Amazonian Basin Ports Being Concessioned and Linked up to the Rest of the Country
Nor is the money confined to the coast. The Amazonian and inland ports of Pucallpa and Iquitos are also expected to be concessioned this year with investment expected to be US$50 million. Other ports that have been put in the frame by other government bodies are Salaverry Ilo on the North and South coasts respectively as well as Yurimaguas in the Amazon with investment tags of US$40 million, US$100million and US$20million respectively.
Whilst it is too early to be definitive about facilities, sums of money needed and products moved there is a general tendency of building on top of existing facilities however small or currently overwhelmed and of dispersing development. Callao might be big but it will not be alone.
Nor will it be stand-alone infrastructure. Woven into the new ports strategy is an awareness of the need to link port facilities with the rest of Peru’s infrastructure. Just as there is some feeling that government cannot do it all.
DP World is an exemplar of this being both a foreign investor and one engaged in joined up thinking and practice. Part of the contract for Muelle Sur in Callao allowed for development to port related infrastructure including of logistics centres.
Muelle Norte, again in Callao, is thinking even bigger and it has been floated that Callao port, which can be seen from Lima's airport and visa versa. should be made part of the same free trade zone thereby giving it a further dynamic.
Links to Land-based Infrastructure Connect Ports to More Than Just Peru
Peruvian rail concessionaire Ferrocarril Transandino (FTSA) is evaluating extending its railway from Cusco, high in the Andes to the Brazilian border, according to the firm's president Romulo Guidino.
FTSA already runs a railway connecting Matarani port in southern Peru to Cuzco. The proposed extension would provide a railway channel for Brazil's soy exports to the Far East, thereby replacing the Brazil-Panama-Far East and Brazil-Cape Horn-Far East shipping routes.
The Railway company is also said to be developing a proposal to extend this project to run through the Amazon and Andean regions to end in the Paita and Sechura ports in Peru's Piura. It would also connect with the Cerro de Pasco rail line leading to Callao.
The point is not so much where it might go but that serious economic players are giving an amount of serious thought to connecting Peru’s ports both coastal and river with its national and international economic hinterlands.
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