Government boosts presence of Spanish companies in Interoceanic Railway Corridor

Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia)

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, began the second stage of his trip to Latin America in Bolivia, where he met with President Evo Morales. The two leaders signed important agreements on development cooperation, infrastructures and cultural collaboration.

During his stay, Pedro Sánchez will also visit various projects by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Spanish acronym: AECID) and will hold meetings with the Spanish community.

At their meeting, Pedro Sánchez and Evo Morales addressed collaboration between Spanish and Bolivian companies, particularly in key sectors such as railway infrastructures, including the case of the construction of the LRT train system in Cochabamba and the Interoceanic Railway Corridor, an ambitious regional project that will join Brazil and Peru and will cross the whole of Bolivia, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by train. To this end, the two leaders signed a Memorandum of Understanding on infrastructures, that specially refers to the Railway Corridor and opens the door for the participation of Spanish companies in the construction of these major civil works.

The two leaders signed a Framework Agreement for the period 2018-2021 in such priority sectors as water and sanitation, education, health, democratic governability and gender equality, within the existing cooperation programme between the two countries.

Pedro Sánchez will also visit Water Fund projects in Bolivia and will hold meetings with experts at Hospital 3000, where, through AECID funding, doctors are being trained in five different specialised fields.

The President of the Government took the opportunity of his meeting to encourage Evo Morales to attend the upcoming Ibero-American Summit to take place on 15 and 16 November in Guatemala, which will be a good occasion to identify common challenges and extend collaborative relations.

President Morales thanked Pedro Sánchez for his visit - this has been the first bilateral visit to Bolivia by a President of the Government of Spain since 1998 - and awarded him the medal of the Condor Order of the Andes with Gran Collar distinction, the highest award bestowed by the Government of Bolivia on citizens and national or foreign institutions for their distinguished work, a gesture with which Evo Morales sought to stress the brotherhood that unites the people of Spain and Bolivia.

Non official translation