This is how the Mutún Steel Company (ESM), located in Puerto Suarez in Bolivia’s southeastern department of Santa Cruz, titled its Jan. 7 press release on the testing procedures taking place at the integrated steel plant which has now produced its first corrugated steel bars and wire rods. This is a matter of great national pride and celebration as expressed by the engineers witnessing the test results yielding the orange, yellow and red corrugated bars and wire rods just out of the furnace at the rolling mill. It was an emotional moment.
They have worked on a project that will allow Bolivia, once one of the poorest nations in Ibero-America, to industrialize its estimated 40 billion tons of iron ore reserves found at “Mutún Mountain” on the Brazilian border, for its sovereign economic development. The area around Puerto Suarez where the steel works are located is to become a great industrial hub. Gone are the days of colonial exploitation for the benefit of foreign profiteers. EIR has heralded Mutún as a model for all developing nations.
