Port Complex in Brazil Opens New Grain Export Route

On April 25, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff traveled to the northeastern city of Barcarena in Para state to attend the opening ceremony of the Miritituba-Barcarena port complex. Built by Bunge, an agribusiness and food processing company incorporated in Bermuda but based in New York, the $320 million complex has two terminals — one in Miritituba on the Tapajos River and the other at the Port of Vila do Conde in Barcarena on the Para River. The terminals will handle grain shipments from Brazil's landlocked state of Mato Grosso and ease pressure on Brazil's overloaded Santos and Paranagua ports in the southeast. The project is just one component of Brazil's broader push to open up the "northern exit" for grain shipments to Europe and Asia via the Atlantic Ocean.