La Paz - The 62-day strike in the Chilean port of Arica between 2013 and 2017 caused economic losses worth 300,000 dollars, the manager of the Bolivian Foreign Trade Institute (IBCE), Gary Rodriguez, said in La Paz on Friday.

The official pointed out that the statistics are based on a study by the Bolivian Economics Center, which is attached to the Camber of Industry, Commerce, Services and Tourism of Santa Cruz.

The losses mainly affected Bolivian importers, exporters and truckers, Rodriguez noted.

The port of Arica is one of the options that Chile gave Bolivia due to its condition as a landlocked country.

In that regard, the IBCE manager noted that after the unfavorable ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, which disallowed Bolivia's lawsuit to negotiate its access to the sea with Chile, it is time to speed up projects like the bi-oceanic train and to strengthen Port Bush to find alternative accesses to the sea.