During the Council of Ministers held in Neiva, President Juan Manuel Santos signed the document that gives life CONPES Plan Magdalena River Navigability, main waterway of the country for the transport of cargo and passengers.
This project will promote multimodal transport and logistics development, ensuring environmental sustainability and comprehensive utilization of water resources.
The structured approach by the Government will have a total investment of 2.17 billion pesos (with input from the national, departmental and municipal coastal Cormagdalena and Ecopetrol), will be advanced under the Public Private Partnership scheme (PPP) and enhance the navigability River through: channeling works and maintenance, dredging, maintenance dredging and navigation satellite enhance conditions for river transport services, logistics and intermodal, preservation of ecosystems and sustainable development of water resources .
These actions will mobilize convoys of up to 7,200 tons, which will result in lower costs of internal mobilization of domestic products. Additionally, there will be significant environmental benefits, savings in travel times, greater accessibility and economic and social development for the coastal municipalities.
The channeling works and ongoing maintenance will be carried out along 256 km from Puerto Salgar – La Dorada and Barrancabermeja, in order to improve the navigability and thus allow the use of this waterway to a larger number of populations, ensuring Midwest connection with the Atlantic coast. The maintenance dredging will be over 909 km from Puerto Salgar and Bocas de Ceniza in Barranquilla, for a period of 10 years.
[mappress]
Press Release, August 9, 2013