This week, the federal government made official the creation of the South American Integration Routes Program. One of the ultimate objectives of the measure is to reduce the time and cost of transporting goods between Brazil and its neighbors, and also with Asia. 
To meet this objective, the proposal is to facilitate actions to integrate physical, digital, social, environmental and cultural infrastructures between South American countries. creation ordinancesigned by Minister Simone Tebet, and published in the Official Gazette of the Union on Tuesday (3), formalizes five integration routes.
According to what foresees the programthe idea includes the development of technical studies and research applied to different areas, such as transport multimodality, connectivity and energy and digital integration, geoeconomic unity, bioceanity and border and non-border perspectives in the national territory.
Five routes
The infrastructure networks focus on five strategic routes designed after consultation with the 11 Brazilian states that border South American countries.
The routes were divided as follows:
- Guiana Island – areas of northern Brazil with French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana and Venezuela
- Amazon – north with Colombia, Ecuador and Peru
- Rondon Quadrant – North and Central-West in Brazil with Peru, Bolivia and Chile
- Capricorn Bioceany – Central-West, Southeast and South with Paraguay, Argentina and Chile and
- Southern Bioceânica – Southern Brazil with Uruguay, Argentina and Chile
According to the government, the five routes project emerged after a meeting of South American leaders in 2023, which decided on a regional integration agenda.
Among the government’s arguments is the fact that Brazil has, over time, privileged trade with European countries and the United States via the Atlantic. The formulation takes into account that, in recent decades, there has been a shift in production towards the states of the Central-West and North and a greater increase in trade with Asian countries.
