By Sebastián Betancourt
The ports of the Bio Bio Region recorded a 5.4% increase in cargo movement in August 2025, a positive figure for the terminals in that southern zone. The perspectives and intentions point towards the growth of volumes, which is why the local port industry is exploring the possibilities that will allow it to boost the numbers and, for this, it is also observing challenges in improving accessibility to the maritime facilities and boosting the imports that enter through the docks.
In this regard, Pablo Passeron, president of the Comunidad Logística de Talcahuano (Comlog) and general manager of Talcahuano Terminal Portuario (TTP), commented that “the first thing is to improve access to the maritime terminals. The Gran Concepción has around one million inhabitants and this demands a road and railway connectivity network that allows freight and passenger transport to coexist harmoniously and, ideally, operate segregated.”
“Second, boost imports to balance our trade balance; there is enormous growth potential in logistic development in that line. Third, ensure that the agricultural production from Maule to the south leaves through our region. We are closer than the ports of the Valparaíso Region and, furthermore, we have a Phytosanitary Inspection Center in Cabrero, only 85 kilometers away on Route 5,” detailed Passeron.
The head of Comlog endorsed the logistic and port strengths offered by the Bio Bio Region, emphasizing the capacities and alternatives offered by the territory, according to the current needs of demand.
In that sense, the general manager of TTP commented that “the Bio Bio Region has ten maritime terminals, seven of them for public use. This guarantees high competitiveness and a wide variety of alternatives for the foreign trade of the south-central zone.”
“Furthermore, in the case of Talcahuano, it has a Logistics Community (Comlog) with about thirty member companies that offer all the services required by the import and export chain. Furthermore, they act with great efficiency, given the work in our maritime, railway, road, processes and promotion and integration with the environment technical committees,” complemented Passeron.
Likewise, he remarked that “the port capacity of the area is up to the demand. It is possible to think about growth in backup areas, to the extent that the demand justifies it. However, today the main thing is for the State to invest in improving access to the maritime terminals, so that the increases in cargo that we are seeing in some facilities do not generate bottlenecks in the logistic chain or impacts on the citizens.”
Among the elements that could be classified as key to boosting the logistic chain of the region and the connections with other areas of the country, the also vice president of the Mesa Comex Bio Bio pointed out that “without a doubt, land connectivity. Extending the Interport Route, materializing the Pie de Monte Route, the Amdel Bridge and the northern railway access.
Hopefully, to establish an intermodal center and, of course, to consecrate the port logistics vocation in the new Metropolitan Regulatory Plan of Concepción, in order to continue projecting that profile, as has been done until today.
Decentralizing port development
Pablo Passeron highlighted the importance of decentralizing port development in Chile and the benefits that such expansion could generate for the different actors involved in the transportation of goods, both in economic advantages and at the operational level.
The president of Comlog stated that “strengthening the port clusters in the north and south would not only help to decentralize, but would also allow for significant savings in time and resources for exporters and importers, by reducing land traffic between the ports and the destination.”
“Similarly, this would help improve the operational continuity of the entire Chilean foreign trade chain, as we already saw a few years ago with vehicle carriers that arrived in the area due to the impossibility of doing so through the Valparaíso Region or the shipments of live heifers from the south, which we have been successfully managing in recent years,” explained the general manager of Talcahuano Terminal Portuario.
