The port of Chancay: a dramatic boost for extractivism in South America

“Brazilian gold left holes in Brazil, temples in Portugal, and factories in England.”
— Open Veins of Latin America, Eduardo Galeano

In 2022, more than a thousand people blocked the Pan-American Highway north of Lima, the Peruvian capital. Residents, fisherpeople, merchants, and environmentalists were protesting the construction of what was being touted as one of the largest ports in Latin America. It was already clear to the local population that the "Chancay megaport" would not benefit them and, in fact, they seemed to be standing on its way. Cracked houses, sunken streets, paralysed fishing, and affected tourism were some of the collateral damage caused by the construction project, while the authorities seemed unwilling to listen.

“The community can no longer stand the vibrations that shake their homes, the cracks along their walls, and the other effects—including psychological ones—that the explosions and drilling machines are causing them while they carve open a tunnel right under their homes and mutilate the surrounding hills,” says Miriam Arce Pita, whose house is less than 30 meters from the port and who is now one of the leaders of the Front for the Defence of Dignity and Freedom of Chancay. "What is the future for this community and others along the way? The megaport needs highways, the logistics will break up cities and towns, they're going to expropriate more than four hundred homes here. (...) What they've done is 'put an elephant on a pin', a 'four-door refrigerator in a shack'."

Luis Herrera Flores, president of the North Chico Artisanal Fishermen Federation (FEPADENOCH), explains that they can no longer fish. “By giving exclusive concessions of the sea to COSCO Shipping, the Chinese company, and most marine species have disappeared because their habitat has been blocked by dredging and contaminated by the breakwater rocks set to block the waves. This also prevents the formation of sand on the beaches, destroying tourism,” says Luis Flores.

Amid the US tariff offensive and other measures implemented by the Trump administration, and the escalating wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, the port of Chancay in Peru is emerging as a move by Beijing with the potential to redefine global trade and geopolitics. Built with Chinese investment and inaugurated in November 2025, with Xi Jinping himself in attendance, the megaport promises to strengthen China's global strategy and, as we will see, also profoundly disrupt the territories through which its logistics network passes.

The Pacific route between Latin America and China shortens maritime trade distances by at least 10,000 kilometers, or ten days, compared to the Atlantic route through the port of Santos, in Brazil.[1] The port of Chancay is presented as an advantageous alternative to the Panama Canal—the recent subject of controversy between the United States and China and through which 5% of world trade passes—since its route avoids increasingly congested transit and rising tariffs, which can reach up to US$300 000 per vessel, in addition to the depth problems resulting from prolonged droughts.[2]

The port emerges then as a strategic alternative to the US’s protectionist moves, designed to intensify the distribution of Chinese goods and manufactured products in the region, as well as to ensure access to strategic resources more quickly and at a lower cost. These infrastructure investments in Latin America not only guarantee access to raw materials and markets for China, but also for the corporations and capital that will settle there as well.

The region holds a fifth of the world's oil reserves, a quarter of strategic minerals (such as lithium, silver, copper, magnesium and molybdenum), a third of primary forests, a sixth of agricultural land and one of the world's largest freshwater basins.[3]

The Chancay Multipurpose Port Terminal, known as the “Chancay megaport”, located in the province of Huaral, about 70 kilometers from Lima, is divided into three areas: a port where barges will operate; a logistics area with warehouses; and a 1.8 kilometers tunnel that crosses the city of Chancay in order to connect the flow of trucks with the Pan-American Highway and with the logistics transport network.

With four docks and an average depth of 18 meters, it is the only port on the continent capable of receiving the world's largest cargo ships, carrying between 18,000 and 24,000 containers at full load. The Panama Canal and the Port of Santos, after their expansions, currently allow the passage of vessels carrying up to 14,000 containers. When completed, the port will have 15 berths to process up to one million containers per year, a figure that could reach 3.5 million, making it Latin America’s third largest port, behind those of Santos in Brazil and Manzanillo in Mexico.

Officially in service in June 2025, the Chancay megaport is Beijing's largest overseas infrastructure investment—at US$3.5 billion—and the first operated directly by Chinese capital. COSCO Shipping Ports Perú SA, a joint venture between the state-owned giant COSCO Shipping Ports, which owns 60% of the port, and the mining company Volcan SA, with the remaining 40%, holds the exclusive concession agreement to manage the port for 30 years.[4]

The public land, formerly considered an intangible and inalienable maritime zone due to its strategic importance for national defense, was sold for 80 cents to one dollar per square meter. Under pressure from COSCO, Peru's port system law (Law 32048/2024) was amended to allow the creation of the country's first private port, classified as a "private port for public use." Through legal action, the Chinese state-owned company is also seeking to be exempted from the jurisdiction of the national agency responsible for overseeing public ports (Ositrán), both for setting tariffs and for inspection duties.

At the same time, a bill to create a Chancay Special Economic Zone (ZEECH) is currently pending approval in Congress, which would be exclusively for the logistics area of the port operated by COSCO Shipping and would be managed under its own rules, outside of Peruvian jurisdiction, in order to obtain tax benefits and relax labour and environmental regulations. If approved in these terms, it would be the first special economic zone managed by a foreign entity.

Latin America’s main exports to China are soybeans and meat, followed by copper, oil, and more recently other strategic minerals such as lithium and zinc. The port of Chancay focuses primarily on exporting agricultural products and importing higher value-added manufactured goods, such as electric cars. Currently, minerals aren’t allowed to be shipped through the terminal because it lacks the specific environmental impact assessment required by law, although this could change soon.

Part of the port belongs to the Swiss company Glencore, one of the world's largest mining companies and owner of the majority stake in Volcan SA. Although Chinese investments in raw materials (metals and minerals) have decreased in the post-pandemic stage—representing 34% of total investments in the region between 2020 and 2023, compared to more than 90% between 2005 and 2009—they still constitute the second largest sector of Chinese direct investment in Latin America, after the energy sector.[5] [6] Perhaps for this reason, the Gansu Logistics Group claims to have imported more than 2,600 tons of silver concentrate for the first time using the port of Chancay. Nonetheless, community leaders have been sued for defamation after stating that the port handles minerals.

In the first five months of the year, the port reported handling goods worth approximately US$777 million, primarily exporting fresh produce: such as mangoes, avocados, blueberries, and grapes, as well as palm oil and garlic. Imports included machinery, solar panels, and electric vehicles, along with maiz (from the United States), household goods, and ultra-processed products such as instant soups.[7] Reducing the sea route by 10 days is key to increasing exports of refrigerated fresh products.

Giddings Fruit, a subsidiary of the US venture capital firm Frutera, shipped blueberries produced in Ica, Peru, from Chancay to Shanghai in 23 days. The company plans to export grapes and other fruits as transit trade from Chile to Peru and subsequently to other destinations. Similarly, the Peruvian company Agrícola Cerro Prieto, which produces green asparagus, avocados, and blueberries, made its first blueberry export through the port as soon as it opened. Peru is the world's leading exporter of blueberries: in 2023, the country exported more than 200,000 tons worth US$1.6 billion to 42 countries, mainly the United States (57%), according to the sector association.

Fruits exported from Peru require intensive collection and use of water, which has led to water scarcity in entire municipalities and a price spike, pushing small and medium-sized producers to give up and sell their plots in a process that many describe as an agrarian counter-reform.

Foreign investment in irrigation projects for fruit production and export—like the Olmos Valley project—is expected to increase because of the port of Chancay. In the Olmos case, the Peruvian government has allocated more than 111,000 hectares of land occupied by communities and US$180 million from the public budget to build the world's largest public-private irrigation system. Almost all the water coming from the Andes has been captured to irrigate 30,000 hectares of fruit—mainly avocados and blueberries recently planted by corporations—destined to be sold at exorbitant prices abroad.

Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, insurance companies and other intermediaries see water scarcity and water-intensive agricultural crops—which increasingly fetch higher prices in the export market—as a new financial asset to add to their portfolios.

The port is a promising development for Brazil's agricultural production and is expected to boost agribusiness expansion zones, especially the MATOPIBA and AMACRO.

However, even with China as its main customer, as long as the bioceanic rail corridor is not completed, the Brazilian agribusiness sector is not enthusiastic about the port. “Soybeans are a low value-added product. There would have to be a railway to Chancay. Our nine-axle trucks can carry up to 55 tons, while the limit in the mountains (Andes) is 27 tons per vehicle,” says Luiz Pedro Pier, president of the Mato Grosso Soybean Producers Association (Aprosoja-MT). Thus, the time saved on the Pacific maritime route would not compensate for the costs and delays resulting from transshipments between different modes of transport, storage, customs procedures and the poor condition of the roads.

From this perspective, Chancay would function as an agro-export center in the Pacific only if there is a transport corridor crossing South America and integrating the areas of agroindustrial expansion in the continent.

With Peru's formal accession to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2019, the majority Chinese-owned company COSCO Shipping took control of the port of Chancay, increasing its direct zone of influence by 685%. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) approved in 2013—which already had numerous deficiencies—was modified after the arrival of the Chinese investors, while recommendations from civil society regarding the impacts on the marine ecosystem, wetlands, housing, and public health remained unaddressed. As in much of Latin America, environmental licensing procedures were relaxed during the pandemic and continue to be so today, accelerating the approval of high-impact economic activities. The mandatory public hearing for the EIA, held in 2020, was conducted entirely online, without effective public participation.[13]

The community denounces that the port has rendered the foundations of their local economy—fishing, agriculture, and tourism—unviable. Luis Flores, from the Artisanal Fishermen Federation, summarises the situation as follows:

The company and the government claim the project will bring development, employment, industry, and tax revenue; but out of the more than 7,000 promised jobs, fewer than 1,000 people were hired during construction, and most of the workers were Chinese. The company has faced several complaints over mistreatment and the deaths of two Peruvian workers, as well as allegations of wrongful dismissal.

With the port's automation, each worker could operate up to 20 containers remotely, which would require a maximum of 1,000 workers for the entire terminal. Meanwhile, Joe Infante, a sociologist with CooperAcción, warns: “There is no more artisanal fishing; many fisherpeople have had to go find other livelihoods. On a good day, fishing used to bring in up to one US$1 000. Now they work as motorcycle taxis and don't even earn 800 soles a month—about US$220.”

Furthermore, driven by the economic expectations surrounding the port terminal, the district of Chancay has experienced a dramatic surge in real estate prices: land prices went up from an average of US$50 dollars to US$1 500 per square meter. Land trafficking mafias carry out invasions on properties belonging to peasant communities in Sayán, Huacho, and the Huaral hills; they falsify documents that are then legalised through corruption and illegally resold. The number of extortion cases increased by 25% in the first eight months of the year in the province of Huaral; which for the first time ranks as the fifth with the highest number of homicides in the country. Experts warn of disputes between drug traffickers and organised crime over control of the terminals at the new port. “Many agricultural lands have been bought out in order to build warehouses, infrastructure, and housing, so there is a lot of land trafficking. Food is becoming increasingly expensive, and there is no fish,” says Miriam Arce. Joe Infante also draws attention to the shift in the slogan of the Huaral valley —where Chancay is located—: from “Capital of Agriculture” it became “Capital of South America”, alluding to its new role as a transit hub for goods from the continent.

This “elephant” is not only generating territorial conflicts in the Chancay region or in Peru; it could extend them to the territories where the logistics infrastructure network is deployed. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Asia, demonstrates how the development of ports, highways, and infrastructure to support Special Economic Zones has undermined the local fishing and agricultural economies and monopolised a significant portion of access to the sea and fertile agricultural land. In South America, the countries of the region—in alliance with China—are reviving the agenda of continental integration axes and bioceanic corridors, intensifying deforestation, land grabbing and trafficking, militarisation, displacement, and the expansion of monocultures, livestock farming, mining, and all sorts of associated illegal activities.

The port’s launch has reignited the old debate surrounding the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA), conceived 25 years ago as a territorial reorganisation project for the Southern Hemisphere intended to facilitate the implementation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), proposed by the United States. The initiative was later revived by left-leaning governments during the commodities boom, with projects carried out partially and progressively, though always following the logic of connecting transport corridors to the Pacific.

In 2023, China was the destination for 38% of Brazil's agroindustrial exports—equivalent to US$62 billion—while Asia (excluding China) became the second largest market for Brazilian agribusiness (17%), displacing the European Union (15%). The recent 50% tariff imposed by Trump could accelerate this trend.

The bioceanic route, in this sense, seeks to channel grains—mainly soybeans and maize—, beef, and iron ore from the main production centers of central Brazil both to the Pacific, via Chancay, and to the Atlantic. Although no route has been defined in detail, the Brazilian government, in partnership with other countries on the continent, launched the South American Integration Routes program in 2023—part of the Growth Acceleration Plan (PAC)—which established five priority corridors with a projected investment of US$10 billion to facilitate the integration of the region's physical and digital infrastructure with Asia. ^[14] [15]

In July 2025, Brazil and China signed a memorandum of understanding, following the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, to begin feasibility studies for the Central Bioceanic Railway Corridor (CFBC), which would connect the Atlantic with the Pacific by crossing the Amazon to the port of Chancay.[16] The section currently proposed for China is an adaptation of the old Transoceanic Railway project; which was never executed because it crossed intangible ecological and indigenous territories in Brazil and Peru, starting from Cruzeiro do Sul (Acre), passing through the Serra do Divisor National Park and arriving at Pucallpa, in Peru.

The new proposal envisions a 3,000 km route for the Brazil-Peru bioceanic railway, connecting the port of Ilhéus on Brazil's Atlantic coast with the port of Chancay on the Pacific. On the Peruvian side, the proposed route would cross seven departments, including Madre de Dios, through the Pampa—a gold-producing region where mining has devastated vast areas of tropical forest—, explains Mauricio Pinzás, a geographer with CooperAcción. However, the Peruvian government continues to consider four alternative road corridors that would pass through Pucallpa, which could affect numerous Indigenous territories and conservation areas.

In Brazil, the proposal seeks to link the West-East Integration Railway (FIOL) with the Central-West Integration Railway (FICO) and build an additional section that would start from the largest agroindustrial hub on the continent, the city of Lucas do Rio Verde, in Mato Grosso, going into the so-called Arc of Deforestation, in the states of Rondônia and Acre.[17]

The bioceanic corridor will cross the two main areas of agribusiness expansion in Brazil and on the continent: MATOPIBA and AMACRO. The first area covers 73 million hectares in the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, and accounted for 75% of the Cerrado’s deforestation in 2024. The second area, more recent, comprises 42 million hectares in the states of Amazonas, Rondônia and Acre.

MATOPIBA has nearly 7 million hectares cultivated with grains, of which more than 5 million are soybeans. Much of its land and logistical infrastructure is controlled by foreign agribusiness conglomerates—ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, and the Chinese company Cofco Agri—as well as investment funds such as TIAA, Brookfield, and Blackstone.

In AMACRO, considered the new hotspot of Amazonian deforestation, the area dedicated to agribusiness doubled between 2003 and 2022, reaching 7.2 million hectares, an area larger than Ireland. Today, the region has more land dedicated to grains and livestock than to forests.

Professor Afonso Maria Chagas, a member of the Campaign in Defense of the Cerrado, warns:

This bioceanic corridor project will intensify deforestation and land grabbing in northern Rondônia, eastern Acre, and southern Amazonas, due to the expansion of cattle ranching and soy farming. Examples include the ongoing encroachment on Mapinguari National Park, the Iquiri National Forest Reserve, and the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, as well as invasions of Indigenous territories such as the Karipuna and Karitiana Indigenous Territories in Rondônia.

A logistical infrastructure of this magnitude imposes itself on entire geographies, ecosystems and populations, opening new routes of expansion for the extractive industry and financial capital, and thus expanding the sacrifice zones of ecosystems and local communities. Known as the "fishbone" pattern, a main route always entails the opening of small, illegal roads, forming a design similar to the skeleton of a fish seen from above. This opens up forests and territories for deforestation, land grabbing, and the dispossession necessary for capital investments to materialise: first for the timber industry, then for cattle ranching and mining, and later for the establishment of soy and maize monocultures and all their associated logistics, incorporating millions of hectares of public and collective lands into the land market and real estate speculation.

This means that the affected area is not limited solely to the railway route, but extends several kilometers inland. GRAIN, in collaboration with CooperAcción in Peru and the Federal Institute of Bahia, Valença campus in Brazil, worked out the impacted area to approximately be a 40 kilometers radius from the projected section of the bioceanic railway, this includes titled and demarcated territories, potentially affected directly or indirectly.

On the Peruvian side, 24 State-protected environmental areas, 69 private conservation areas, 19 Indigenous communities, the Madre de Dios Indigenous Territorial Reserve, and 1,793 farmers communities would be impacted. On the Brazilian side, 85 Conservation Units, such as the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park (GO) and the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve (AC), could be affected, as well as 28 Indigenous territories, such as the Xingu National Park (MT), including several isolated peoples, such as the Zoró (MT and RO); and approximately 320 Agrarian Reform Settlements.

Although an exit to the Pacific in South America directly benefits China's geostrategic interests, the transportation infrastructure and the port of Chancay open the door to foreign investors and conglomerates of any nationality, facilitating the establishment of special economic zones geared toward their profits. In this export-oriented agricultural model, territorial development plans, agrarian reform, environmental preservation areas, food production for local consumption, and small and medium-sized national industries tend to be sacrificed.

Before any development paths are defined, communities must urgently center their own plans in the public debate. They must secure territorial protections and advocate for their own routes to food, technological, and territorial sovereignty, thereby resisting their classification as colonial "sacrifice zones."

[1]Brazil's Port of Santos, the largest in Latin America by cargo volume, is at 95% of its operational capacity.

[2]The Chinese company Panama Ports Company operates two ports at the access points of the Panama Canal, which will handle 39% of the containers in 2024, while the other three major privately owned ports of the United States and Panama, Taiwan and Singapore, operate with 28%, 16% and 14% of TEU containers (6 meters long).

[3]ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean). 2023. Natural resources outlook in Latin America and the Caribbean. Executive summary. (LC/PUB.2023/7), Santiago. Available at: https://www.cepal.org/es/publicaciones/48985-panorama-recursos-naturales-america-latina-caribe-2023-resumen ejecutivo

[4]Cosco Shipping Ports belongs to the Ocean Alliance group, which transports 40% of all global cargo and manages 297 terminals in 37 ports worldwide. Meanwhile, 55% of Volcan belongs to the Swiss giant Glencore, which controls 12 mines and 13 hydroelectric dams in the region.

[5]Enrique Dussel Peters. Monitor of the Chinese OFDI in Latin America and the Caribbean 2024. ALC-China Network, May 13, 2024. Available at: https://redalc-china.org/monitor/publicaciones/

[6]Chinese state-owned Minmetals (MMG) bought operation Las Bambas–the world's largest open-pit copper mine–from Swiss company Glencore Xstrata in 2014, for US$5.8 billion. China is also expanding its recent operations in Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia—which together hold 66% of the world's lithium reserves—refining between 50% and 70% of this mineral, essential for electric cars and all battery energy storage systems, including renewable sources such as solar and wind. Sustainable Latin America (LAS). Ten Years After the Belt and Road Initiative. Environmental and Social Challenges of Chinese Investments in South America: Quito, 2024.

[7]The Panama Canal moves an average of US$270 billion a year, while the Port of Santos in Brazil handled a total of US$174.43 billion in goods in 2024.

[8]Sustainable Latin America (LAS). Ten years after the Belt and Road Initiative. Environmental and social challenges of Chinese investments in South America: Quito, 2024.

[9]In 2000, the Chinese market accounted for less than 2% of Latin American exports, but with China's rapid double-digit GDP growth and the resulting trade boom, trade between Latin America and China grew at an average annual rate of 30% over the next ten years. By 2024, trade between the region and China had reached US$518 billion. Diana Roy. China's Growing Influence in Latin America. Council on Foreign Relations. June 6, 2026.

[10]The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) officially arrived in Latin America on January 2018, during the Second Ministerial Meeting of the China-CELAC Forum (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), through the Santiago Special Declaration. Memoranda of Understanding signed by: Panama (2017); Bolivia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, Guyana, Suriname, Dominica, Grenada (2018); Peru, Barbados, Jamaica, Cuba, Dominican Republic (2019); Nicaragua and Argentina (2022); Honduras (2023).

[11]In 2020, the Belt and Road Initiative Green Development Coalition (BRIGC) published its Green Development Guide, aimed at China's enterprises and financial sector, which is intended to promote the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the goals of the Paris Agreement.

[12]After 10 years of the China-Peru Free Trade Agreement (2009), China became Peru's main economic partner, reaching over US$20 billion in exports by 2022: 88% in minerals, followed by industrial fishing for fishmeal (7%) and US$15 billion in imported machinery and manufactured goods. Between 2003 and 2022, there were over US$13 billion in direct investments, mainly in minerals and transportation and storage infrastructure. Unlike the FTAs signed with the US (2006) and the European Union (2011/2012), the FTA with China excluded clauses on environmental protection and labour rights at a time when several LAC countries were facing debt crises and eager to take advantage of the so-called "China factor," with GDP growth exceeding 10% in the 2000s. Ten years after the Belt and Road Initiative. Environmental and social challenges of Chinese investments in South America: Quito, 2024.

[13]Antony Apeño and Alejandro Chirinos. Report on the Chancay Multipurpose Port Terminal Project. CooperAción. November 2024. Available at: https://cooperaccion.org.pe/publicaciones/reporte-sobre-el-proyecto-terminal-portuario-multiproposito-de-chancay/

[14]In December 2023, at the Mercosur Summit, a portfolio of US$10 billion in loans was announced between BNDES, with US$3 billion, and regional development banks: the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) and Fonplata that will contribute another US$7 billion.

[15]The 5 planned routes are: Route 1- Guyana Island: integrates Amapá-Brazil, including a fiber optic infovia, with French Guiana (Port Cayenne), Suriname (Port Paramaribo), Guyana (Port New Amsterdam) and Venezuela (Puerto La Cruz); Route 2 - Amazonia: Amazon region of Brazil (Manaus Free Zone), Colombia (ports of Tumaco), Ecuador (Esmeraldas, Manta and Guayaquil) and Peru (Chancay); Route 3 -Rondón Quadrant: exit from agroindustrial zones in Brazil (Goiás, Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Acre) and Bolivia (from Puerto Quijaro and Santa Cruz de la Sierra), to the ports of Peru (Ilo, Maratani and Chancay) and Chile (Arica). Route 4 - Capricorn Bioceanic: projected to link the consolidated areas of the agroindustry of the Southern Cone, from the main ports of Santos (São Paulo) and Paranaguá (Paraná), in Brazil, integrating the Ports of Santa Fe, passing through Salta, in Argentina and Asunción in Paraguay to the Chilean ports of Antofagasta, Mejillones and Iquique. The Capricorn Bioceanic route 4 integrates Mato Grosso do Sul, São Paulo, Paraná and Santa Catarina with Paraguay, Argentina and Chile; Route 5 – Southern Bioceanic, integrates Rio Grande do Sul with Uruguay, Argentina and Chile.

[16]The memorandum was signed between Infra SA, a company linked to Brazil's Ministry of Transport, and the China Railway Economic and Planning Research Institute, the world's largest public railway company, to conduct studies on the Brazilian railway network and the multimodal nature of the transport system, with the unification of roads, railways, waterways, ports, and airports.

[17]The Deforestation Arc refers to a region of about 500,000 square kilometers in the Brazilian Amazon between southern Pará and Maranhão, passing through Mato Grosso, Rondônia and Acre, where about 75% of the Amazon's deforestation takes place.