The Peruvian port of Chancay is ceasing to be merely a new infrastructure for Peru's foreign trade and is beginning to gain relevance for Ecuador and other countries on the South American Pacific coast.
One of the main signs is the strong growth in transshipment cargo movement, especially that coming from Ecuador and Chile, which uses the Peruvian terminal as a connection point with Asian markets.
Between January and July 2026, Chancay moved 246,452 TEUs, a 74% increase over the 141,000 TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) registered in the same period of 2025. With this result, it displaced Paita and consolidated its position as the second port in Peru with the highest container movement, only behind Callao.
But behind the growth, there is a particularly important fact for Ecuador: transshipment increased by 121% in the first seven months of 2026. Import cargo grew by 73%, while exports advanced by only 5%. This means that a growing part of Chancay's activity does not exclusively correspond to Peruvian trade, but to goods arriving from other countries to be connected with international routes.
The Deputy General Manager of Cosco Shipping Ports Chancay Perú, Jason Guillén, stated in June that 55% of the cargo moved by Chancay corresponds to cabotage mainly from Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, and Mexico. This cargo arrives at the Peruvian port to subsequently depart for Asia.
Chancay's objective is to become a regional port hub: to receive large vessels from Asia, concentrate cargo and redistribute it to different South American countries, and do the inverse process with the region's exports.
In this scheme, Ecuador is already part of the routes that feed the Peruvian port. The Guayaquil-Chancay-Shanghai route began operating in February 2025 and allows Ecuadorian cargo to reach China in about 27 days, compared to the 35 to 42 days that other routes could take.
Sebastián Angulo, an independent journalist and economic analyst, summarizes Ecuador's interest in this way: "The interest for Ecuador lies in how the routes of its cargo to other markets are reorganized. The growth of transshipment shows that Chancay is gaining relevance in the region."
The available information points mainly to agri-food and refrigerated products, because they are goods in which a reduction in transport times can have a significant impact.
Before the route was launched, the Ecuadorian Federation of Exporters (Fedexpor) identified bananas, shrimp, and cocoa, among other agri-food products, as the main candidates to benefit from the connection through Chancay. The reason is that they are perishable products, volume-intensive, and sensitive to transit times.
The route already has an especially visible relationship with Ecuadorian bananas. Between January and August 2026, Ecuador exported 12.14 million boxes of bananas to China, an increase of 11.84% compared to the same period in 2025. The Ecuadorian Maritime Chamber highlights that the Guayaquil-Chancay-Shanghai connection, with a transit time of about 27 days, strengthens the logistical conditions for these shipments.
Shrimp is also key. In the first half of 2026, Ecuador exported $1.917 billion worth of shrimp to China, a 10% increase in value and a 17% increase in volume. China absorbed more than half of the volume of shrimp exported by Ecuador.
In addition, cocoa, coffee, flowers, and tropical fruits are among the offerings that Ecuador seeks to boost towards China, taking advantage of the logistical connection. The Ecuadorian Government has even proposed consolidating Shanghai as the main gateway for Ecuadorian offerings to Asia, with the Guayaquil-Chancay-Shanghai route as one of the pillars of this strategy.
Is Shanghai, for now, the clearest Chinese destination for Ecuadorian exports arriving from Chancay?
Regarding destinations within China, the publicly available information specifically identifies Shanghai as the main destination for this route.
The connection inaugurated in February 2025 was precisely designed as Guayaquil-Chancay-Shanghai. The Peruvian port functions as a transshipment point and Shanghai as a gateway to the Chinese market.
This does not mean that all Ecuadorian cargo passing through Chancay necessarily ends up in Shanghai or that it cannot subsequently be distributed to other cities. Shanghai has railway and intermodal connections with a large part of Chinese territory and is used as a distribution platform to the east and center of the country.
In fact, Ecuador is seeking to take advantage of precisely that capacity. The Government and business representatives have proposed a closer relationship between Guayaquil and Shanghai, especially for products such as shrimp, bananas, cocoa, coffee, flowers, tropical fruits, and mining.
The available data indicates that not yet. The Ecuadorian port sector maintains that Chancay functions primarily as a complementary transshipment node, not as a substitute for national ports.
Iliana González, executive director of the Association of Port Terminals of Ecuador (Asotep), stated in May 2026 that Chancay's impact on Ecuador had been "indirect and not substitutive." According to her explanation, a country's own cargo, its imports and exports, is normally loaded and unloaded at its own terminals for reasons of cost, efficiency, and proximity to production centers.
The difference is important: an Ecuadorian commodity can leave Guayaquil and still be counted as cargo moved by an Ecuadorian port, even if it subsequently transships in Chancay before continuing to Asia.
The most recent evidence reinforces this interpretation. Between January and June 2026, the Contecon terminal in Guayaquil moved 442,000 TEUs, compared to 338,000 in the same period of 2025. That represents a growth of approximately 30%. In addition, container traffic with Asia grew by 28% in the same period.
That is, there is no observed drop in Guayaquil's cargo associated with Chancay's growth. On the contrary, the Ecuadorian port recorded a record semester.
Contecon even projected to exceed 830,000 TEUs in 2026, while warning that, if growth continues and no new investments are made, the capacity of Guayaquil's terminals could become saturated by 2028.
This also changes the interpretation of the competition between Chancay and Ecuador. For now, the Peruvian port seems to be reorganizing the international routes of Ecuadorian cargo rather than replacing Ecuadorian ports as departure points.
There is a paradox in this new logistical configuration. Ecuador can use Chancay to access large vessels and routes to Asia, but the cargo can still have Guayaquil as its origin and concentration point.
Guayaquil moves between 85% and 90% of the country's non-oil foreign trade. The strategy being proposed is not to replace that infrastructure, but to connect it more efficiently with Shanghai and other Asian markets.
This explains why Asotep considers that the challenge for Ecuador is not to prevent cargo from using Chancay, but to improve the competitiveness of its own ports.
The association points out that Ecuadorian ports need investments in maritime infrastructure, channel deepening, terminal expansion, and better land access. As of 2025, private ports associated with Asotep had accumulated investments of $418 million and projected to reach some $807 million by 2030.
The growth of transshipment is helping the port to get closer to one of its main objectives for 2026.
Cosco Shipping, the terminal operator, aims to close the year with 500,000 TEUs moved.
The first stage of the port has an approximate capacity of 1 million TEUs, so reaching that goal would mean using about half of that capacity.
With the 246,452 TEUs accumulated until July, Chancay had already reached about half of the annual goal.
The pace is significant considering that the port formally began commercial operations in 2025. In its first year, Chancay moved around 286,000 TEUs, exceeding its initial goal of 200,000 TEUs.
The growth of Ecuadorian and Chilean cargo is a positive sign for Chancay, but there is still a question: can the port truly become the great logistics center of the western coast of South America?
To achieve this, it is not enough to have a modern terminal. It also needs efficient roads, railway or logistical connections, industrial zones, and infrastructure that allows containers to be moved quickly to and from the port.
Currently, there are connectivity problems. The main route between Chancay and Callao has a section of Néstor Gambetta Avenue interrupted for months, and the bridge over the Chancay River, which collapsed in February 2025, continues to be replaced by a temporary structure with less capacity.
In addition, a study by the Universidad del Pacífico identified 21 infrastructure projects worth some 820 million soles (more than $238 million) that had been proposed to improve Chancay's logistical environment and remained pending.
