During El Oro’s 129 anniversary celebration, the provinces prefect Montgómery Sánchez took advantage of the visit of Ecuadors new vice-president-elect to the province to suggest the national government support the construction of a trans-Andean railroad to connect the coast and the Amazon.

The train, the prefect says, would be useful for commercial purposes: to transport copper from the Mirador open-pit mine in the Zamora Chinchipe Amazon region, over the Andes through Loja and to the port at Puerto Bolívar, El Oro.

He also suggested it could connect the south of Ecuador with Piura in northern Perú.

Vice-president Jorge Glas, meanwhile, said that the government has been analyzing the idea for some time. He reminded the prefect of past commitments to El Oro (the $500 million Minas-San Francisco dam, and the natural gas project in Campo Amistad).

He said that Ecuador’s future is in the development of the knowledge economy and not a dependency on non-renewable resources.

Original story