Bolivia improves cargo movements by Paraguay Paraná Waterway

Bolivia is increasingly taking a strategic and fundamental position within the Paraguay Paraná Waterway. Both the Bolivian government and the private sector have been developing important actions to improve processes and infrastructure that enable the strengthening of logistics and services offered from the Puerto Quijarro port on the Tamengo channel.

Over the past two years, Bolivia has begun to take important steps to increase cargo transit for import and export via the Paraguay-Paraná waterway. Among them is the declaration of international port for the port terminals that are on the Tamengo channel, as a first step in putting the country on the international port map.

Some problems with short-term solutions still remain to be solved, such as documentation issues, logistical and procedural problems, which are just beginning to be solved with the goal of facilitating and shortening logistic times and the release of export cargo vessels.

According to Oswaldo Barriga, president of the Santa Cruz de la Sierra Chamber of Exporters, Logistics and Investment Promotion, Cadex, the operation in Bolivia, from ship loading, travel, arrival, unloading, and release of imported cargo currently takes one week, but will be able to be done in a maximum of three days.

According to the executive, the entity also intends to improve logistics costs in order to increase cargo volumes on the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway.

Port Infrastructure

The private sector is also making its own efforts in Bolivia, such as the Ports of Jennefer and Aguirre, which are adapting all their infrastructure to meet their needs and aiming to become a primary customs zone.

A project is also underway to build the port of Busch, which is already in the process of being tendered to begin construction.

“Today we are beginning to see an important volume of containers coming into the Paraguay-Paraná waterway and, if we look at the statistics, we can see that it is constantly growing between 20 and 25% over last year in both import and export containerized cargo,” says Barriga.

The executive also said that he has signed important agreements with several institutions such as CAFyM, CATERPA, the UIP Paraguayan Industrial Union, and the IDR of Argentina to be able to think jointly and inter-institutionally about the synergy that the waterway has today.

Source: Paraguai Fluvial

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