River transport accounts for only a minor part of the movement of goods. In 1988 total freight carried was 7.7 million tons, as compared with 4.7 million tons in 1980. Brazil has 50,000 kilometers of inland waterways. The three major river systems are the Amazon, the Paraná, and the São Francisco. The Amazon is navigable for 3,680 kilometers to Iquitos, Peru. Oceangoing ships can reach as far as Manaus, 1,600 kilometers upstream. There are plans to link the Amazon and Upper Paraná. In addition, a 3,442-kilometer waterway system is being created by extending the Tietê-Paraná river network along the Paraguai and Paraná rivers as far as Buenos Aires.
The merchant marine, the largest in Latin America, has 220 ships totaling 5,139,176 gross ton weight (GTW) and 8,695,682 deadweight tons (DWT). It has five passenger-cargo, forty cargo, one refrigerator cargo, twelve combination ore/oil, sixty-five bulk, two combination bulk, and eleven vehicle carrier ships. In addition, one naval tanker is sometimes used commercially.
Data as of April 1997