MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Plans for highway linking Chile, Brazil and landlocked Bolivia

The presidents of Chile, Bolivia and Brazil want to step up plans to build a highway from the Pacific to the Atlantic oceans that would boost trade, Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley said in Santiago

The highway would run from Santos port in Brazil, cut through Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and end in the northern Chilean ports of Arica and Iquique. The highway would give land-locked Bolivia key maritime access. "What the presidents want to do is meet in a place that has yet to be determined, probably in Bolivia, and announce a calendar to build and complete this inter-oceanic corridor so that it can inaugurated reasonably soon," Foxley told journalists in Chile. Foxley said the presidents, Chile's Michelle Bachelet, Bolivia's Evo Morales and Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva, discussed the issue last week during a summit of Latin American leaders. "Right now we are just trying to co-ordinate the agendas of the three presidents," Foxley said. Landlocked Bolivia has been claiming the restitution of a strip of land, currently Chilean territory, which it lost during the Pacific war of 1879. Neighboring Peru and Bolivia allied in an attempt to grab northern Chilean territory but were finally defeated. In retaliation Chile absorbed Bolivia's sea access and a strip of southern territory.