Brazil and China advance in planning a bi-oceanic railway

When technology organizes space, society gains time to live. The project that shortens travel between continents by 12 days shows that Brazilian logistics can stop being a hindrance and become a development platform.

When technology organizes space, society gains time to live. The railway planning that Brazil and China are discussing carries exactly that ambition: to turn geography into productivity and distance into competitiveness. The memorandum of understanding under discussion by Infra S.A. — a company linked to the Ministry of Transport — and the China Railway Institute’s Economic Research and Planning Institute lays the foundations for a bi-oceanic railway that would depart from Bahia, cross Goiás, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Acre, reaching the Port of Chancay in Peru. It is a route that redesigns Brazilian export logistics, aiming directly at the Pacific and, through it, the Asian market. The National Secretary of Railway Transport, Leonardo Ribeiro, classified the act as the first step in a technical and diplomatic journey to bring continents closer and reduce distances. Projections by the Peruvian government indicate that cargo transport time between the two oceans could drop from 40 to 28 days, a savings of nearly two weeks that directly impacts the final cost of the agricultural and mineral commodities Brazil sends to China. As reported by the G1 portal in covering the signing, the agreement has an initial five-year term, renewable, and provides for studies of intermodality and economic, social, and environmental sustainability. The memorandum determines that the Brazilian and Chinese teams deepen research on the national logistics structure, integrating not only rails but also waterways and highways in a systemic planning that the country has never completed on its own. The Port of Chancay, financed by the Chinese government and inaugurated in November 2023 by Peruvian authorities, is a key piece in the New Silk Road — the global infrastructure initiative that Beijing meticulously expands across the Global South. Brazil has not formally joined the Belt and Road Initiative, but the Lula government’s understanding is pragmatic: since China already accounts for about a third of Brazilian exports, physical integration matters more than symbolic adherence to diplomatic arrangements. Turning this memorandum into real tracks, however, requires a clear-eyed look at the financial reality of the Brazilian railway sector. Each kilometer of railway in the country costs, on average, R$27 million — more than three times the cost of a highway, budgeted at around R$8 million per kilometer, according to data compiled by InvestNews. The math is relentless: without robust state financing or substantial international capital, projects of this scale never leave the drawing board. The historical dependence on iron ore exposes another structural fragility that the bi-oceanic project could help correct. In 2025, Brazilian railways transported 406.6 million tons of ore — 73% of all rail cargo — while agricultural commodities represented 104.4 million tons, only 19% of the total moved. Vale alone operated 301 million tons last year, consolidating a vertically integrated model in which the same company controls the mine, railway, and port. The Atlantic-Pacific Bi-oceanic Railway, by crossing the heart of Brazilian agribusiness, can finally give rail scale to soybeans, corn, and meat that today face long road journeys to ports in the Southeast. The federal government has signaled that it intends to hold railway auctions in the coming years, totaling 9 thousand kilometers and R$140 billion in investments, a package that includes projects such as Ferrogrão, FICO, FIOL, and the extension of the North-South Railway. None of these undertakings, however, will be viable with only domestic private capital. The presence of Chinese giants such as CRRC — the world’s largest train manufacturer — and CCCC, which has already established a foothold in the Port of São Luís, indicates that Beijing’s interest in Brazilian logistics is concrete and backed by food security. Seventy percent of the soy and corn that China imports come from Brazil, and reducing the costs of this corridor interests both Brasília and the government of Xi Jinping. The BNDES negotiates lines with extended terms of up to 60 years for railway financing, while Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and the railway authorization regime attempt to unlock new investments. The cost of inertia is known: while European and Asian countries treat rails as the backbone of development, Brazil insists on fixing bottlenecks with decades of delay. The memorandum under discussion does not guarantee that the railway will become a reality, but it puts long-term planning back at the center of the national logistics agenda, exactly where it should be. The bi-oceanic railway is more than a route between Bahia and Peru: it is the chance for Brazil to modernize its transport matrix using Chinese capital, technology, and scale to solve a problem that the country alone has never managed to address. When technology organizes space, society gains time to live — and the time Brazil has lost in recent decades is already debt enough to its own future.