The Uruguayan department of Rocha seeks to reconnect through the Laguna Merin the north the mayor’s office with the Brazilian city of Porto Alegrea project that even interested the owner of Buquebus, Juan Carlos López Mena.
At the beginning of last year, specifically in the month of March, Rocha’s department requested a report from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) regarding a possible project that promotes commercial navigation of Uruguay with Brazil through Laguna Merín.
The project would allow for a river and lake interconnection between the east of the Uruguay and the south of Brazil, more specifically the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre with the north of the department of Rocha.
“The idea is to reactivate a form of navigation that existed in the 20s-30s-40s, and that ceased to exist once the roads were built. The idea is to connect Porto Alegre and its entire area of influence (Brazil) with the northern area of Rocha, July 18 and the area of influence of Chuy,” they explained from the commune to Telemundo.
The result of the report
The report was presented in the country’s capital in recent days where the Argentine businessman – naturalized Uruguayan – and owner of Buquebus, Juan Carlos López Mena, who assured that he is very interested in the project. “He is very interested. He left with an idea to suddenly make boats with cabins, so that the experience would already be an element of tourism,” they explained from the commune.
According to the ECLAC report, there is high potential in river connection, which would allow the waterway to be developed for tourism and connect the two countries. On the other hand, they established that it is a strategic project where progress could be made in the connection of the southern cone, since it would become a new route that would link three countries region of.
In this sense, the mayor of Rocha, Alejo Umpiérrez, considered it necessary to start thinking about a possible binational tender to direct the project. This advance comes a month after the Brazilian government has made official its program to begin a dredging and beaconing of the Laguna Merin with the aim of completing the waterway.
Source: Ambito
