The Andean Development Fund, CAF, approved a $300 million loan Monday to partially fund the completion of the Peru section of the Transoceanic Highway, a roadway project to connect Brazil’s Atlantic ports with the Pacific coast of Peru, said CAF Director Eleonora Silva Pardo.
“(With this loan), the project, which is a pivotal element in the development of (Peru’s) southern region and its integration with Brazil and Bolivia, will move forward and generate direct and indirect benefits for nearly six million Peruvians and almost one million more Brazilians and Bolivians,” said Pardo in comments to Radio Programas, RPP.
“CAF is backing the construction of this great corridor of integration, which is considered the central element of the Peruvian government’s strategy for decentralization, territorial compensation and social equity,” added Pardo. “(The highway) will drive important socioeconomic change in a region where six million people live in poverty.”
In November, Finance Minister Luis Valdivieso said Peru was short $741 million – or $200 million more than initially planned – to complete the construction of three segments of the Transoceanic Highway.
CAF, which is the main source of multilateral financing in the Andean region, is to cover construction and supervision costs for 2009-2010.
The mega-project, which is to connect the southern Peruvian ports of Ilo, Matarani and Marcona to the Brazilian ports of Rio de Janeiro and Santos, entails the repair and new construction of roughly 2,600 kilometers, or 1,615 miles, of roads and 22 bridges.
The total distance of the highway is approximately 5440 kms (3400 miles), of which over 4650 km (2900 miles) are complete and fully paved. Work continues in Peru on the final section of 736 km (460 miles) from the Amazon basin and over the Andes to the coastal ports of Callao, and Matarani in the south.
Although the governments of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia enthusiastically emphasize the commercial development benefits of the highway, environmentalists have been expressing concern that the project was approved with atypically little concern for environmental impact studies, and that the highway will have grave and irreversible environmental and social impacts on the region, and jeopardize ecotourism, a sustainable industry that is increasingly profitable even for local communities.
