The president of the Autonomous Executive Port Commission (CEPA), Federico Anliker, assured that El Salvador could start the ferry project in five or six months, which means that it, could be running as of February 2021.
As explained by the president of CEPA, the delay in starting the ferry between Puerto La Unión in El Salvador and Puerto Calderas in Costa Rica is because the latter country still has to fine-tune several details regarding procedures for the cargo mobility tariff schedule.
“We are now ready to operate the ferry, but Costa Rica did not have a tariff for ferries in Puerto Calderas, and establishing it, according to the Costa Rican Minister of Public Works, could take between four or five months,” said the official.
For the operation of the ferry, the Ministries of Public Works of both countries will sign a memorandum of understanding in early September. It has been thought that the ferry could be both for cargo and passenger transport, but at the moment it is only scheduled to transport cargo, emphasized the president of CEPA.
With the ferry, the idea is that only the container travels by its specific load on the ship, and the transport that will receive it is in the port of arrival to only hook it up and take it to its destination.
The ferry project has come about for several years and gained strength again in 2018 with the interest of a Costa Rican company and with the work of the Corporation of Exporters of El Salvador (Coexport) in El Salvador together with the government, however, due to to the Coronavirus Pandemic, this impulse was kept on hold; It is until today with the prompt economic reopening that it is being resumed.
Acajutla expansion
Regarding other projects, the president of CEPA said that with the Port of Acajutla they are securing a millionaire loan from South Korea for the expansion of this maritime terminal. “We have expanded the container park to 30% of how we found it, we are handling 280,000 teus a year and we want to double it, but for this, we need places where ships can dock,” said Anliker. The official reported that the investment for the expansion of the Port of Acajutla berth is about $ 350 million.
