Moving Inland and Up-river
Making multimodality make sense
When viewing its entire journey from producer to consumer, all trade, ultimately, is multimodal. Once a shipment arrives to port, in order to reach its final destination – which, in a region on the scale of Latin America, could be situated many hundreds of miles inland – it must be moved to another form of transport. In Latin America, that is typically a truck.
With that in mind, Martin Rojas, Americas advisor at the IRU, highlighted the need to address a major shortage of truck operators in Latin America. Already, the industry faces a labor shortage: there were around 100,000 driver vacancies in both Brazil and Mexico in 2024. A key concern for Rojas was structural barriers to bring young people to the industry: “In some countries, drivers must be 21 years old to obtain a commercial license. After graduating from school, most take a position in another sector that does not require them to wait so long,” he said.
Not only does this affect the demographics of the sector – overwhelmingly male, and with an average operator age of 55 – but also presents a potential existential challenge for the long term: with 3.4 million operators set to retire globally by 2029, it is unclear who will replace them.
To help address that deficit, Pablo Álvarez, a consultant at Excellence Freight, highlighted a need for industry – including chemicals – and logistics sectors to work together to make the profession more attractive. He described examples of poor treatment truck operators have reported while waiting for late-arriving shipment loaders – shabby accommodation, limited access to bathrooms, or poor-quality food – and the risks they face while working and living on the road, including organized crime.
A key factor, he argued, would be a renewed appreciation of the value of truckers’ work: “Truck operators are entrusted with highly valuable equipment and cargo. It is a responsibility of our industries to work together to dignify that.”
“Around 70% of goods and cargo in Latin America move by road, yet it remains the elephant in the room. While ships, pipelines and railroads are glamorous topics, we see little talk about road transportation.”
Pablo Álvarez, Consultant, Excellence Freight
Shipping on the Paraná-Paraguay
The Paraná-Paraguay-Río de la Plata is one of Latin America’s great river systems, along with the Amazon and Orinoco. From sea to source, a distance of over 3,400 km, its ports serve Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. Juan Bautista Allegrino, a physical oceanography consultant, spoke to the conference about the waterway’s role as a strategic development corridor, with work ongoing to provide access for larger vessels and more docking points.
Further development could offer advantages including lower logistical costs, greater energy efficiency, and higher cargo capacity than road or rail connections to cities like Santa Fe, Asunción and Corumbá. A new Bolivian port, Puerto Busch, is currently in development, which will provide the landlocked country a crucial, 10 million t/y artery for shipping to and from the Atlantic ocean.
For the chemical shipping industry in particular, a widening of navigable waterways and upgrading of port and terminal facilities could allow oceangoing Handysize ships, which are the go-to size for chemical shipments, to reach further up-river. Bautista Allegrino highlighted that though only around 10% shorter in length than the Mississippi, the Paraná-Paraguay currently sees less than a third of the North American river’s annual tonnage traffic, and has seen only moderate alteration to its natural course.
Bautista Allegrino also emphasised that inter-regional collaboration would be essential to secure the Paraná-Paraguay’s development – but that the job may be easier than it sounds: “It will require the governments involved to agree on where this development should focus. While these are major infrastructure projects – not only involving dredging but also building ports and roads – they are also far simpler than having to build locks or canalize the river, which is necessary on other similar waterways.”
Article header by Franco Garcia at Pexels