Nicaragua completes Bluefields-Nueva Guinea highway

The long-awaited 72.8km road between the cities of Bluefields and Nueva Guinea, in Nicaragua's south Caribbean coast autonomous region, has now been completed, according to President Daniel Ortega.

Ortega declared the highway officially open at an event to commemorate the death of Tomás Borge, a key figure in the country's revolution and cofounder of the FSLN Sandinista party.

Transport and infrastructure minister Oscar Mojica, who also attended the event, said that the project required US$115mn in investments and took three and a half years to complete, government media reported.

Mojica said that the road was built with hydraulic concrete and should have a useful life of more than 50 years, provided the relevant maintenance works are carried out.

Construction of the highway was financed with loans from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank (WB), as well as from national government funds. Japan’s international cooperation agency JICA also provided funds for the construction of some of the bridges on the route.

Construction of the road began in April 2016 and was divided into three sections. While the first stretch, covering 26.5km between Bluefields and San Francisco, was completed in December, the second 23km section, linking Comunidad Taleno and Villa Nueva, was opened in February.

According to authorities, the road is expected to reduce travel time from Managua from 10 to 3 hours, and will serve to attract more interest in the project of building a deepwater port in Bluefields, as well as to boost trade, fishing, agriculture and tourism.

The highway forms part of a corridor that will link the country's Caribbean and Pacific coasts.