The Minister of Economy and Finance, lily arbelecheand those of Foreign Relations, Francisco Bustilloand Transportation and Public Works, Jose Luis Falerothey traveled to Brazil This Tuesday, they met with their peers from that country and made important announcements for the country, such as the opening of a tender for the waterway dredging and a new international bridge.
On the side of the neighboring nation, the ministers participated in the meeting Mauro Vieira (External relationships), fernando haddad (Tax authorities), Renan Filho (Transportation) and Marcio France (Ports and Airports). For all the projects that were confirmed today there will be a binational Working Group dedicated to them.
Detail of the dredging of the waterway and the new international bridge of Río Yaguarón
Bilaterally, it was agreed that in the coming weeks the tender for the dredging of the Uruguay-Brazil waterway. The idea is to start work before the end of this year and, when it happens, the presidents Luis Lacalle Pou and Lula Da Silva they will meet again hand in hand to announce it.
The investment that will be required for the project will be between 8 and 10 million dollarsas calculated by the Undersecretary of Transportation, Juan Jose Olaizolawhen he visited Brazil in January.
The realization of the initiative will result in great benefits for Uruguay’s foreign trade, since it will produce an “improvement in logistics costs” in an area where soybean, rice, wood and fertilizer exports abound.
In addition, the Brazilian transport portfolio promised to open within two months – with the possibility of extending the term to three months – the tender for the construction of a new international bridge over the Yaguarón River. In this case, the intention is also to sign the construction contract at the end of this year.
On the Uruguayan side, there will also be work to restore the historic Barón de Mauá bridge, the road junction between Yaguarón, in Brazil, and Río Blanco, on this side, once the new bridge is operational.
Before said tender, the ministers of both countries will meet again, within 30 days, to sign the agreement of Binationalization of the Rivera Airport.
Brazil and Uruguay pledged to “modernize” Mercosur
In addition to the aforementioned announcements, the Uruguayan delegation spoke with the Brazilian authorities regarding the current operation of the mercosura subject deeply discussed in the last summits and in the last hand in hand between Lacalle Pou and Lula Da Silva.
In this sense, in the joint communiqué, both parties promised to “promote the current process of modernization” of the regional bloc. “We need a Mercosur that benefits our societies and that is open and integrated with the world. We agree to deepen intra-bloc integration and expand the network of external agreements”, they stated.
Lacalle Pou repeatedly raised Uruguay’s intention to “open up to the world” and found himself with a reluctant position in the rest of the regional partners. “We will work actively for balanced trade agreements with other countries and blocks and on key issues such as removal of barriers to tradethe improvement of infrastructure and the promotion of sustainable development”, raised the officials from Brazil and Uruguay now.
“We understand that there is ample room to work together on the bloc’s foreign agenda, in search of a best international insertion of our countries”, they added after the summit, where it was also agreed to work together in the negotiation of the agreement between the Mercosur and the European Union.
Source: Ambito
