• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile

  • CORONAVIRUS
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Express/Small Shipments
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Robotics
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • REGIONS
    • Asia Pacific
    • Canada
    • China
    • Europe
    • Latin America
    • Middle East/Africa
    • North America
  • THINK TANK
  • PODCASTS
  • VIDEOS
  • WHITEPAPERS
Home » ‘New Panama Canal’: Paraguay Plans Transport Hub Linking Atlantic and Pacific

‘New Panama Canal’: Paraguay Plans Transport Hub Linking Atlantic and Pacific

‘New Panama Canal’: Paraguay Plans Transport Hub Linking Atlantic and Pacific
July 23, 2019
Bloomberg

Paraguay plans to turn its remote, sparsely populated northwest into an international transport hub and a key link between ports on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America, in a proposal its government likens to a latter-day Panama Canal.

Investment of over $2bn in basic infrastructure such as roads and bridges aims to transform the Chaco region and boost trade, according to Public Works Minister Arnoldo Wiens. The Corredor Bioceanico will connect ports in Brazil and Chile, while a revitalized highway will span the region from north to south.

“It’s going to generate unprecedented development,” Wiens said in a telephone interview from Asuncion.

While Wiens compared its potential impact on regional trade to that of the Panama Canal in the early 20th Century, Latin America boasts a long history of ambitious infrastructure projects that don’t always materialize. A plan to build two, 13.9 kilometer tunnels through the Andes has made little progress since Argentina and Chile created a joint entity to manage the project in 2010.

Still, the vast, semi-arid Chaco is already an important part of the Paraguayan economy as a major producer of beef, dairy and increasingly soybeans, thanks in no small part to Mennonite farmers who settled in the region. The annual value of goods transported over the current Transchaco highway could more than triple to around $5bn in about five years with better roads, according to Wiens.

Yet Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil should work together to pick a route that is “economically viable” to build as it probably doesn’t make sense to have a lot of competing alternatives, said Juan E. Notaro, executive president of development bank Fonplata.

Green Hell

Rapid deforestation is already transforming the brutally hot, ecologically diverse area — once known as the “green hell” — where a large number of the country’s indigenous communities live.

Paraguay faces the challenge of minimizing the environmental impact from large-scale development that sooner or later is going to reach the Chaco, said Yan Speranza, executive director of conservation non-profit Fundacion Moises Bertoni, which manages around 70,000 hectares of private nature reserve in the country.

“Our environmental regulations are very good in general terms,” he said. “The big problem is always the ability of the state to enforce the law. The lack of enforcement capacity is a concern.”

Public Works Push

The government’s plans are part of a larger nationwide building program that includes more than $6.8bn for highways, water and waste projects. Public works could prove a badly needed lifeline for an economy that has slowed due to weak growth in neighboring Brazil and Argentina. The central bank has signaled it might lower its 2019 growth forecast, which currently stands at 3.2 percent, when it updates its outlook for the economy on July 25.

While multilateral lenders including CAF and the Inter-American Development Bank will probably provide half of Paraguay’s public works funding needs, Wiens sees the private sector’s participation rising to 30 percent in a few years from 20 percent today.

Over the next year 12 months the government plans to tender at least $1.2bn in public-private partnerships and turnkey projects, including two segments of the Corredor Bioceanico, and that might obtain funding from global capital markets, he said.

Foreign investors have already signaled their willingness to pour money into Paraguayan infrastructure. The consortium that holds a turnkey contract to build the first segment of the Corredor Bioceanico raised $450m from a global bond sale in May, while a $250m bond sale next month will fund part of the expansion of Highways 2 and 7 in southern Paraguay under a PPP contract.

That financing “clearly shows the confidence international markets have in the macroeconomic stability of our country,” Wiens said.

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED VIDEOS

Logistics Global Gateways Global Logistics Ocean Transportation Transportation & Distribution Global Trade & Economics Latin America
KEYWORDS Global Gateways
  • Related Articles

    New World Alliance Plans Launch of Trans-Atlantic Service

    The New Panama Canal: Who Wins; Who Loses?

    Opening of New Panama Canal Locks Gets Pushed Back at Least Three Months

Bloomberg

As Retail Sales Improved, Inventories Rose Less in February Than Expected

More from this author

Wake up to Coronavirus Updates and the latest Supply Chain News!

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

Popular Stories

  • Coronavirus-watch-Armada

    Virus Update: Slow Vaccine Rollouts Delay World’s Economic Recovery; Airbus Plant Hit by Outbreak

    Coronavirus
  • Car Industry

    A Year of Poor Planning Led to Carmakers’ Massive Chip Shortage

    Technology
  • Can Employers Require Employees to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? Part 1

    Watch: Can Employers Require Employees to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? Part 1

    Coronavirus
  • U.S. Vaccine Rollout Hindered by Faulty Coordination, Messaging

    WHO Fumes at Western Drugmakers As China Fills Vaccine Void

    Coronavirus
  • Third-Party Cybersecurity

    What Vaccine Supply Chains Must Do to Protect Against Cyberattack

    Coronavirus

Digital Edition

Scb home issue 27

2020 Supply Chain Innovator of the Year

VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

Case Studies

  • LSP Saves Customer $1.5 Million a Year With MPO Global Inbound Management

  • Auto Supplier Wows Key Client Using riskmethods Supply Chain Savvy

  • Integrating Shipping and Compliance Saves Conglomerate Millions

  • How a Consumer Goods Giant Upped Its On-Time Delivery Performance

  • LSP Wows Global Client, Quickly Advances to Become End-to-End Provider

Visit Our Sponsors

6 River Systems ArcBest Armada
aThingz BluJay Burris Logistics
DSC Logistics DCSA (Digital Container Shipping Association) DHL Resilience360
Genpact GEP Honeywell Intelligrated
Infor Logility Magnitude Software
MPO Old Dominion Oliver Wight
OpenSky Ports America Purolator
QAD Precision Red Classic Riskmethods
TGW Systems Transportation Insights Watson Land Company
Westfalia Technologies Workjam Yang Ming
  • More From SCB
    • Featured Content
    • Video Library
    • Think Tank Blog
    • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
    • Whitepapers
    • Webinars
  • Digital Offerings
    • Digital Issue
    • Subscribe
    • Manage Your Subscription
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Events Calendar
    • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
    • Supplier Directory
    • Case Study Showcase
    • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
    • 100 Great Partners Form
  • SCB Corporate
    • Advertise on SCB.COM
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • Data Sharing Opt-Out

All content copyright © 2016 - 2018 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing