The port of Corinto will receive Chinese equipment and machinery to rebuild and expand the old Punta Huete military airport, 58 km away. from Managua.
Nicaragua and China inaugurated this Thursday, August 1, a direct maritime commercial route within the framework of the Belt and Road initiative, which Managua described as "transcendental", in order to take advantage of the benefits of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA). between both countries that came into force on January 1.
It is "a transcendental event, a historic day for our country," said Laureano Ortega Murillo, son of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo, at the opening ceremony.
The maritime trade route was inaugurated with an event in the port of Corinto, the main port in the Nicaraguan Pacific, where the Chinese ship Sunny Fortune arrived from the port of Tianjin, in China.
Ortega Murillo explained that this route will operate with a monthly frequency of three ships, due to the distance between both countries.
For his part, the Chinese ambassador in Managua, Chen Xi, said that the opening of this maritime commercial route will promote and contribute "enormously to Nicaragua's trade with the entire world."
In the opening ceremony of that route, broadcast by official Nicaraguan media, the Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Bruno Gallardo, participated for Nicaragua; the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, retired General Óscar Mojica, among other officials. And for China, the Chinese ambassador in Managua, Chen Xi, and businessmen from the Asian country.
THEY WILL REBUILD A MILITARY AIRPORT
The opening of this new maritime route between Tianjin and Corinto included in its first trip the import of 23 pieces of equipment and machinery that will be used for the reconstruction, expansion and improvement project of the Punta Huete international airport, located 58 kilometers northeast of Managua. and which according to the authorities will be ready in four years.
The Chinese company CAMC Engineering Co., Ltd will be in charge of this project in Punta Huete, which was the largest military base in the Central American country during the first Sandinista Government (1979-1990).
Punta Huete, located in the municipality of San Francisco Libre, was built by the Sandinistas with the support of the defunct Soviet Union and Cuba, in the 1980s during the civil war that took place in Nicaragua, so that MiG planes could land. -21, who never arrived in the Central American country.
