Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Peruvian president Dina Boluarte on Thursday inaugurated a huge port in the Peruvian city of Chancay, celebrating an infrastructure project that is expected to attract $3.6 billion in investment and will create a direct route from China across the Pacific Ocean to South America, as reported by
The Washington Post.
The port opening, which comes ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and Xi’s final meeting with President Joe Biden, underscores China’s growing clout in a region that once looked primarily to the United States for economic opportunity.
“China is ready to work hand in hand with our Peruvian friends with one heart and with the same goal and steer the ship of our friendship toward an even brighter future,” Xi wrote in an editorial published in the El Peruano newspaper ahead of his arrival in Peru.
Chinese and Peruvian officials have called the project a transformative opportunity for Peru to become a central hub for South American goods from its biggest trading partner. Boluarte has called it a potential “nerve center” joining the continent to Asia, one that could create 8,000 jobs and $4.5 billion in economic activity annually.
Chinese companies are involved in almost every aspect of the deepwater port project. The high-tech logistics hub will be exclusively operated by Chinese shipping giant Cosco, which in 2019 invested $1.3 billion to take a 60 percent stake in the project. Chinese state media has estimated the total cost of the finished project to be as much as $3.6 billion.
