Friday February 6th, 2026
The South American Integration Routes Program is formalized today (February 3rd) through an ordinance signed by the Minister of Planning and Budget, Simone Tebet, and published in the Official Gazette of the Union (DOU). The Routes program was formulated and continues under the leadership of the Secretariat for Institutional Articulation (SEAI) of the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Planning (MPO).
The establishment of Rotas as a program within the MPO formalizes what has been the practice since 2023, when the initiative was formulated: coordination with different agents and institutions and the planning of actions aimed at regional integration.
“Rotas is an original, creative creation that demanded and continues to demand a great deal of energy and coordination from our ministry, together with the other ministries of President Lula’s government, with the Brazilian regional governments and, in partnership with Itamaraty, with the countries of our region,” stated Minister Simone Tebet.
All departments within the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management (MPO) were consulted by the Special Secretariat for Institutional Coordination (SEAI) and contributed to the decree. “The Rotas program is President Lula’s initiative that seeks to fulfill Article 4, sole paragraph, of the Constitution, which demands the integration of Brazil with our neighbors,” emphasizes João Villaverde, Secretary of Institutional Coordination. The secretary recalls that the program is inspired by past initiatives, such as IIRSA (from 2000) and Cosiplan (from 2009), and includes a large number of stakeholders – from the Ministry of Transport to the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, including the Ministries of Ports and Airports, Justice and Public Security, Science, Technology and Innovation, Itamaraty (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), MDIC (Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade), the Civil House, among others.
The Routes Program is part of President Lula’s domestic and foreign policy agenda, encompassing 190 infrastructure initiatives within Brazilian territory – including highways, railways, ports, airports, information highways, and electricity transmission lines.
During his participation in the Latin America and Caribbean Forum, promoted at the end of January by the CAF bank in Panama, President Lula once again spoke about the importance of the program. “Brazil is advancing at an accelerated pace in the implementation of its South American integration routes program. We remain committed to working with all neighboring countries. There are dozens of projects to improve highways, waterways, railways, ports and airports, as well as information highways and transmission lines, with the potential to double intra-regional trade in a few years.”
The program was authorized by Lula in November 2023, following a decision made at the Presidential Palace that also included the participation of the Special Advisor to the Presidency, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Celso Amorim.
There are five South American Integration Routes:
1- Guiana Islands;
2- Amazonian;
3- Rondon Quadrant;
4- Capricorn Bioceanic Corridor;
5- Southern Bi-Oceanic Corridor.
All five routes are multimodal and integrate all Brazilian states with all South American countries, creating a bi-oceanic character – from the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice versa.
The Secretariat for Institutional Coordination (SEAI) of the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management (MPO) designed the five routes after consulting with the 11 Brazilian states that border South American countries. The routes serve the dual purpose of encouraging and strengthening Brazilian trade with South American countries and reducing the time and cost of transporting goods between Brazil and its neighbors and Asia. SEAI later expanded this federal consultation to all other Brazilian states. All this technical work is available in the program’s three annual reports: 2023 , 2024 , and 2025 .
Among the more than 9,700 projects of the New PAC (Growth Acceleration Program), 190 were identified as having the potential to contribute to regional integration. The selection of projects was not intended to be definitive. The MPO (Ministry of Planning, Budget and Planning) is in dialogue with the governments and civil society of the border states and with neighboring countries to improve the five routes.
In addition to budgetary resources, the integration works in Brazilian territory can count on financing of US$ 3 billion from BNDES (approximately R$ 15 billion), while regional development banks – Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) and Fonplata – have made available another US$ 7 billion.
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