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.
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. It 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.
