China's president unveils a megaport in Peru, but locals say they're being left out
A remote fishing town on the edge of Peru’s coastal desert is the site for a $1.3 billion megaport majority-owned by the Chinese shipping giant Cosco
CHANCAY, Peru (AP) — On the edge of Peru’s coastal desert, a remote fishing town where a third of all residents have no running water is being transformed into a huge deep-water port to cash in on the inexorable rise of Chinese interest in resource-rich South America.
The megaport of Chancay, a $1.3 billion project majority-owned by the Chinese shipping giant Cosco, is turning this outpost of bobbing fishing boats into an important node of the global economy.
From the presidential palace in Lima, 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of the port inauguration ceremony, China’s President Xi Jinping watched a livestream of the ribbon-cutting alongside his Peruvian counterpart, Dina Boluarte, late Thursday.
The leaders' faces appeared on a giant screen in Chancay, where engineers in bright orange safety vests declared the port operational to the swell of string instruments. Chinese dancers with red dragon-costume heads seemingly burst out of nowhere to prance around the docking station as a crane lowered the first aluminum containers onto a berthed cargo ship.
