Weekly Report - 21 October 2010 (WR-10-42)

BOLIVIA-PERU | Maritime deal. “It is unjust that Bolivia has no sovereign outlet to the ocean. This is also a Bolivian sea," Peru's President Alan Garcí­a said standing alongside his Bolivian peer Evo Morales on 19 October in the coastal city of Ilo, in the southern region of Moquegua. The purpose of the meeting was to revamp Boliviamar, a 1992 accord under which Peru ceded to Bolivia 163 hectares of land 17km from Ilo, including a 5km sliver of coastal territory, for 99 years. Under the new accord Bolivia will be able to build export and import infrastructure in this free trade area and use dock facilities at Ilo port. The Bolivian navy school, currently confined to Lake Titicaca, could also be based here. Bolivia never really took up the offer in 1992 in part because of the lack of transport links, a shortcoming the accord seeks to address by calling for the construction of 400km of roads to improve the links between Ilo and Bolivia.