Peru to upgrade Amazon region's roads, ports

Peru's government aims to modernize transport infrastructure in the country's Amazon jungle in a bid to open up the remote region to export markets and tourism, President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said.

Projects include the expansion of the river ports of Iquitos, Pucallpa and Yurimaguas, and a highway to Iquitos in Loreto region, in addition to direct international flights to Iquitos and Tarapoto, Kuczynski said.

"The Amazon needs links to the rest of the country and the world," Kuczynski said in broadcast comments during a visit to the jungle city of Tarapoto in San Martín region.

Peru's northern jungle is home to the country's largest oil fields, as well as featuring coffee, cacao and banana cultivation, fish farms and logging concessions. The government awarded a US$95mn Amazon waterway concession to China's Sinohydro last month.

Kuczynski also oversaw the start of construction work on the 118.5km, dual carriageway Moquegua-Arequipa highway in the southeastern Andes. The 410mn-sol (US$125mn) project will also feature seven bridges, embankments and drainage, benefitting an estimated 1.5mn residents, according to a statement on the presidential website.

"The construction of this highway guarantees safer transit, reducing both journey times and costs, promoting economic development in the south," transport and communications minister Bruno Giuffra said in a separate statement. "We're going to try to accelerate the completion of these public works."

Kuczynski, who marked his first year in office last month, has pledged to unlock US$25bn in blocked infrastructure investment and tens of billions of dollars in mining and energy investments, while starting up a 20bn-sol reconstruction program to rebuild coastal areas devastated by flooding earlier this year.

In other infrastructure news, the finance ministry authorized 16mn soles in financing for state investment promotion agency Proinversión to carry out a feasibility study for line No. 4 of the Lima metro, the transport ministry said in a statement. The government said earlier this year it plans to award the US$4.2bn, 31km concession in the second half of 2018.

At the same time, work is rescheduled to restart at the delayed line No. 2 project after the government approved an engineering study for the Ovalo Santa Anita station, one of 25 stations to be built on the 25km line, state gazette El Peruano reported. The project will be jumpstarted after signing a contract addenda, El Peruano said.

A consortium made up of Spain's ACS and FCC and Impreglio and Ansaldo Breda of Italy won the US$5.6bn contract in 2014. Brazil's Odebrecht and local firm Graña y Montero completed the second stage of line No. 1 in 2014.

WATER

In water infrastructure news, state water administration agency Otass authorized the transfer of 7.5mn soles to jungle region municipal water utility Emapa San Martín, the housing ministry said in a statement.

Kuczynski, who has pledged to extend potable water and sewerage services to 100% of Peru's 30mn population by 2023, is trying to bail out the country's municipal water companies, most of which are bankrupt.

The ministry added that it will cover the cost of a 2.5mn-sol study for a 153mn-sol potable water and sewerage project in Piura region's Sullana province, one of those hardest hit by record flooding and landslides in March.