China, Brazil eye coal rail, ports in Colombia

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday that China and Brazil were eyeing investmentslab manual books for civil engineering in the Andean nation's coal infrastructure to gain more access to the material. Colombia, the world's No. 5 coal exporter, has seen a five-fold increase in foreign investment, especially in oil and mining, since 2002 due to the country's U.S.-backed offensive that pushed leftist rebels to remote jungle hide-outs.

"(China's Development Bank and China Railways gave me a list of where they want to invest. They want to invest in a 250-kilometer (155-mile) railway uniting the Pacific and the Atlantic. The cost of that would be $2.7 billion, and also in the Carare railway," Santos said. "The Brazilians have told me they want to make not only a railway but also a port in Carare because they're very interested in our metallurgical coal ... the Chinese are also interested in our metallurgical coal," he said in a statement...