China mulling interoceanic rail corridor in Honduras

After establishing diplomatic relations with China and the visit of President Xiomara Castro to Beijing, the Honduran government presented Chinese officials with a list of infrastructure projects. 

The projects were presented during a session of the Honduras-China commission for trade and investment and includes construction of an interoceanic rail corridor. 

However, China’s potential involvement is still under discussion in Beijing. 

“They [China] are not yet involved in the projects. They were presented with this proposal, and they are still analyzing potential investment,” said Jorge Paz, the president of Honduras’ civil engineers association and who also chairs the commission for the construction of Honduras’ interoceanic railway – formed by business associations and NGOs.

The project is reported to involve a US$20bn investment that includes the construction and refurbishment of two ports: Castilla – the deepest port in the Caribbean – and another that would be built on Amapala island in the Pacific at about the same depth. 

The rail corridor would complement the Panama Canal, where operations are limited by its depth. 

“Castilla port is the deepest in Central America, there is also an island called Amapala in the Fonseca Gulf and both locations have the capacity to receive post-Panamax ships, which can transport over 20,000 containers,” Paz said in an interview with BNamericas. “The largest ship that can cross the Panama Canal has around 11,00 containers and its depth is an obstacle, especially during the summer.” 

According to Paz, up until 2019, some 60% of the transportation demand for goods from one ocean to the other was unfulfilled. 

The rail corridor – construction of which is expected to take approximately 15 years – is not the only project that the Chinese government is considering.

“They were also presented with projects like dams, which would provide flood controls in the Sula Valley, and the construction of hospitals, but that was propaganda to explain why Honduras established relations with China after many years of cooperation with Taiwan. We will have to wait to see what comes out of this but there is nothing official as of now,” said Paz. 

Honduras is also seeking to reach a free trade agreement with China for which it recently began negotiations.