The Japanese Mitsubishi Group has formally announced yesterday its partnership with the International Biocean Consortium. The latter is led by Eurnekian’s Group through Corporación América. Geodata (Italy), Empresas Navieras (Chile), and Contreras Hermanos (Argentina) are other members of the consortium. The agreement to build the railroad integration system was subscribed with the presence of Osamu Sasaki, Chief Regional Manager of the Asian Corporation. The project will connect the city of Los Andes in Chile with Mendoza through a low-height tunnel.
Meanwhile, the second phase of the Andean corridor has already started. This phase involves conducting detailed studies about the market demand areas. In addition, it will focus on the engineering, geology, and geophysics in the area. The first phase of the project –launched in 2009– dealt with the prefeasibility and environmental studies. 
The “Aconcagua Biocean Corridor” will be a cutting-edge cargo railroad integration system. As such, it will resort to the existing port, railroad, and road infrastructure, passing by the major cities, production and business centers in Argentina and Chile to serve 50% of their respective populations and 52% of the regional GDP”, as explained by Hugo Eurnekian, vice-president of Corporación América.
The executive pointed out that “its area of influence will also extend to the Mercosur, serving 70% of South America’s GDP. With Mitsubishi as a partner, we also seek to reach the Asia-Pacific markets.”
In addition, the project adds multimodal stations in Luján de Cuyo (Argentina) and Los Andes (Chile) with freight transport capacity. This will make it possible to grow from the 7 million annual tons currently transported to more than 50 million tons. Yet, this will demand an investment of 3 billion dollars.