Category: South America

INFRASTRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT
While the export of steel, steel products and aluminum was not a problem, because the Orinoco to Ciudad Guayana can be easily navigated by large cargo ships, transports to the north of the country are still carried out by heavy-lift trucks. At the end of the 1990s, around 200 trucks left the SIDOR production facilities alone to cross the river over this bridge and drive north. With the opening of a second, much closer Orinoco bridge in November 2006, the connection was significantly improved. But Ciudad Guayana is still dependent on heavy goods transport. The plans for a rail link between the city and the economic centers in the north have all failed, not least because of the lobbying work of the transport companies.

Ciudad Guayana already had 40,000 residents in 1961, five years later the number had grown to 100,000, with the last census in 2011 already 850,000 residents were registered. Ciudad Guayana is not only the fifth largest city in the country, but above all the most important location for the Venezuelan heavy industry. Iron, steel and aluminum production is the second most important economic sector in the country after the oil industry, even if it only accounts for less than five percent of exports (as of 2012), which is modest compared to oil. For more information about the continent of South America, please check franciscogardening.com.