Brazil and China agreed on Monday to study the feasibility of a transcontinental railway that could reshape South America’s trade routes by connecting Brazil’s Atlantic Ocean coast to Peru’s Pacific Ocean port of Chancay.
The memorandum of understanding was signed between Infra S.A., the Brazilian state-owned company linked to the Ministry of Transport, and the China Railway Economic and Planning Research Institute, part of China State Railway Group.
The plan outlines a railway of about 4,500 kilometres (roughly 2,800 miles), running from Ilhéus in the northern Brazilian state of Bahia to Rio Branco in the northwestern state of Acre, before crossing the Andes towards the Peruvian coast.
Some estimates put the cost of proposed project at upwards of US$70 billion.
If built, the corridor could shorten shipping times to Asia by as much as 12 days compared with current Atlantic routes that pass through the Panama Canal. For now, however, the agreement is only for technical, environmental and economic studies, expected to last for up to five years.
