DEVELOPMENT-CENTRAL AMERICA: The Integration Highway

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Néfer Muñoz

SAN JOSE, Sep 29 1999 (IPS) - By year end, Central America intends to begin construction of a highway between its principal cities and between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, paving the way to the region’s full integration.

The highway, which will be 5,600 km long and cost more than one billion dollars, is being promoted by Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. The new roadway is expected to be completed in 2005.

Known as the “Central American Logistical Corridor,” the project is among the priorities of the regional development plan for the new century: the Agenda for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development.

The plan was drafted by the Central American Business Management Institute and the Harvard Institute for International Development.

The Central American governments propose to use the plan to reduce poverty and promote investment over the next two decades, in order to reach higher levels of trade development and generate more-sophisticated goods and services with greater added value.

Among the first steps to be taken, according to the Agenda, is to build the Central American Logistical Corridor, which will link shipping ports, airports, national capitals and other large cities. The ultimate goal is to achieve open borders, a unity of trade and tariffs.

“This is the largest multinational project that has ever been carried out in the region,” explained Astrid Fischel, vice- president of Costa Rica.

Fischel said the highway will have a multiplier effect because it will reduce business operating costs in the region, attract foreign investment, and modernise the border crossings, which will result in greater efficiency in the exchange of goods and services.

To travel the length of Central America by land, from Guatemala to Panama, currently takes an average of 72 hours. But experts point out that the route will take much less time once the Logistical Corridor is complete.

“Of those 72 hours, nearly 20 are spent at border crossings filling out paperwork,” stated Enrique Paguagua, Nicaragua’s ambassador to Costa Rica.

This is not just a highway, Paguagua explained, this a true communications network. This project represents an important step for Central American integration, he added.

Construction of the Central American Logistical Corridor is planned for four stages.

The first phase, called the Pacific Longitudinal Route, involves construction of a 1,700 km highway linking Tecún Umán, in western Guatemala, with Panama City.

The second stage takes advantage of already existing stretches of the Pan-American Highway and adds new sections connecting the main cities of the isthmus, for a total of 1,400 km of roadway.

The third and fourth parts of the project involve the construction of the Atlantic Corridor (1,350 km) and of the Inter- Oceanic Corridors (1,100 km), which will link the ports located on the two ocean coasts.

Costa Rica’s agriculture minister, Esteban Brenes, indicated that this communication route is good news for Central Americans, because soon they will be able to travel from Guatemala to Panama in the same time it takes to drive from New York to Miami.

Fischel said the Central American governments are now waiting for the results of a pre-feasibility study, which costs more than six million dollars, but Taiwan has offered to pay.

Despite the earthquakes that seriously damaged Taiwan this month, the offer still stands, said the Costa Rican vice-president.

She explained that after the study is concluded, they will look for private and public sector funding, and will call for bids on the highway’s various construction projects.

The goal of the region’s governments is to convert the Logistical Corridor into an integrated system of advanced infrastructure for the region’s development, Fischel said.