Latin America's Transport Infrastructure: Ready For Investment By Marcio Stewart, InfoAmericas

Latin America's commodity-led export boom has pushed the region's transportation infrastructure to its limits, revealing serious inadequacies. The 2005 World Bank study of Latin American infrastructure illustrates that today's bottlenecks and impaired regional growth are the result of underinvestment in the sector over the last 15 years.

There is growing realization among Latin American political leaders that export competitiveness depends on modern transportation infrastructure. With government prioritizing infrastructure investment and private sector players attracted by the healthy growth in trade, investment is set to grow at record levels over the next few years.

Private investors are most interested in air and sea ports because both are closely tied to hard-currency exports, lowering financing costs. Consequently, public investment is more likely to focus on roads, which carry the bulk of domestic traffic and provide a vital link between sea ports and major airports and the hinterlands where many export goods are produced.