The activity at the port of Bolivar, in southern Ecuador, increased by 10% with the addition of a fifth 240 meters by 98.5 meters dock, which required an investment of $ 51.2 million dollars. The provincial director of the Ministry of public works, José Becerra, said that exports from this port, between January and October 2013, amounted to 1.29 million tonnes of bananas.
According to a report by the Port Authority, 1.26 million tonnes of fruit were exported through the port between January and October 2012.
40% of the country's bananas are exported through the southern Ecuadorian port. Ecuador is the world's largest banana exporter and, by September this year, had already exported 4.14 million tonnes of the fruit, with profits for the country of up to 1.760 billion dollars. This fruit represents 22.3% of Ecuadorian exports and it is the first non-oil export.
Boats from Russia, Turkey, United States, Germany, Serbia, Algeria, England, The Netherlands, Poland, Italy, and Belgium arrive at the port to upload bananas.
Wilmer Encalada, manager of Port Authority said that they had been able to improve the entry of new products into the port thanks to the modern infrastructure, monitoring, recording and security technology that had been implemented at the marine terminal.
The dock's modern infrastructure also prevents the ships that arrive annually from making sudden movements, due to the ocean's force, when they start unloading their merchandise. The dock has a damping defence system that absorbs 80% of the ships' impacts.
92% of the port activities are for the export of bananas and the remaining 8% are for products such as the pineapple, passion fruit, mango, cocoa and broccoli. "This port used to be considered exclusive for banana exports, but, thanks to the new infrastructure, we have increased the variety of our cargo," Becerra said.
Source: diariopinion.com