Rosario constitutes the central nucleus of an urban conglomerate –integrated by various cities and communities- known as the Metropolitan Area of the Great Rosario, which integration can be defined following two different criteria:

From this point of view, the defined area by the following cities: Capitan Bermudez, Fray Luis Beltran, Funes, Granadero Baigorria, Perez, San Martin Port, Rosario, San Lorenzo and Villa Gobernor Galvez count with an ascending population –according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INDEC)- to 1.069.293 people.

Following this criteria, it incorporates all the municipalities and territories that are in interaction from the economical, social or cultural point of view. In this case, the delimitation is more complex because the regional development’s dynamic could be changing the geographical limits of the conglomerate. In a first approximation, the area will be determined by 47 localities in an  approximately 50-60Km around Rosario. Since Villa Constitución City, go through the localities of Acebal, Casilda, Carcaraña and they end in Puerto San Martín and the Parana River at the east.
Rosario is the industrial, commercial and financial center of the most important cattle and agricultural productive region of the country.

Because of its geographical location, Rosario is preparing to be the strategic center of the bi-oceanic connection that will engage the state of Rio Grande Do Sul (Brazil), on the Atlantic Ocean, with the Valparaiso (Chile), on the Pacific Ocean. Thus, the hinterland of the great Rosario constitutes a neurological point of communication among the countries that form the MERCOSUR; being, furthermore, an obligatory commercial enviroment and services center. As far as education is concerned, there are about 404 establishments for elementary education and 220 for high school education as well as 6 different universities that can accommodate 77.400 students.
In health aspects, Rosario has 79 centers of elementary attention; it also has 5 county hospitals and 7 Township hospitals. Twenty five percent of Rosario’s budget is destined to health attention.
Seventy-one percent of the population was born in the city, sixteen percent come from other provinces and nine percent from other Santa Fe localities; the rest come from other countries.

The center region of our country, which consists of Cordoba, Santa Fe and Entre Rios provinces, is a significant economical cluster, it has the adequate size to function as a true operating unit on the international economy. Actually, there are partial agreements being signed among the provinces government, which aim to its consolidation. Rosario will consolidate its status of central nucleus of this new regional space, due to its geographic location and economical potential.

MECOSUR represents one of the more interesting and dynamical experiences in regional economical integration, constituting an extraordinary possibility to improve South American countries position, in relation to the northern economical blocks. It is also en emerging market that at the same time is expanding, where business opportunities multiply themselves due to common external commercial politics and internal politics increasingly convergence.
Through its participation in the net of "Mercocities" –which is integrated by the most important urban cluster in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Chile- Rosario is playing a role of integration that is not only economical but social and cultural as well.
As a development focal point, Rosario its figure in the vanguard regional integration process. From the economical point of view, marches to constitute it self as the center of communications and logistics for the bi-oceanic traffic.

Productive Profile

Rosario is responsible for approximately 60% of the total geographic gross product of Santa Fe and for 5% of the national gross product. Furthermore, it generates 53% of the province’s employment and 62% of the industrial establishments in Santa Fe are within the city limits.
In the Rosario region, there are about 3.670 industrial establishments, which employ 63.000 people, approximately, and they generate about 1billion dollars.

The primary industry of the region is food products (it represents 21% of the industrial activity). It is followed in order of importance by metal-mechanics industries with 18% and by machinery and equipment industries with 10%. Petrochemical, paper mills, lumbers, textile and plastic manufactures also are situated within the city and its zone of affluence.

As far as the food industry is concerned, Rosario count with the most important cooking oil establishment of the country. This establishment represents 50% of the grounding capacity, 68% of the countries vegetable oil exportation, 85% of the by-products loadings and 47% of the grain loadings.

Regarding metal-mechanics industries, Rosario is one of the cities with most important presence of agricultural machinery industries (11% of the province total). In addition, it has 17% of the mechanical products manufactures of the province and 26% of the machinery and equipment.

About 63% of the companies are small and medium size companies. It is also worth mentioning the important presence of big companies such as General Motors, Dupont, Cargill, ICI, Credit Agricole, etc. Some of them being multinationals, which are within the region.

Rosario’s port facility moves about U$S6.472 billion in exports and about U$S 835 million in imports a year.

At the Rosario’s Stock Exchange we have two market dedicated to cereal, term market and available market. The market represents about 10% of the total value exchanged in the country. Thus, it is the second most important market. In it, yearly transaction are realized that amount to U$S 786 dollars. The term market is, along side Buenos Aires’, the most important. The volume of operations surpasses 103,000 contracts (2.6 million tons of grains, approximately), being the most important soy bean, wheat and corn.

Ports and navigable routs

Rosario’s port is in reality, an extended dock facilities on the right cost of the Parana River, which costal line is 80Km long and it has a depth of water of 32 feet from General San Martin Port to the Rio de la Plata’s mouth. It has active terminals that go from General San Martin Port (to the north) to Villa Constitución (to the south).

This complex takes up 68% of the national loadings of vegetable oil, 85% of by-products loadings and 47% of the grains loadings.

The maintenance dredge and buoy systems have been given in concession to Hidrovia  Co S.A. consortium, which must assure the navigation, in 32 feet of dredge, of loaded Panamax type ships. In the near future, the dredge will be 36 feet deep.

Distances from Rosario to other cities in South America:

• Montevideo (Uruguay): 720 Km
• Santiago (Chile): 1,350 Km
• Porto Alegre (Brazil): 1,330 Km
• La Paz (Bolivia): 2,800 Km
• Asunción (Paraguay): 1,250 Km

The city counts with an extremely developed communication net, fundamentally for the transport of loads.

Under construction:

• Rosario-Victoria bridge: It will connect Rosario with the province of Entre Rios. The inauguration of this connection will divert the commercial traffic from the San Pablo (Brazil)-Valparaiso (Chile) rout, to Rosario.
• Rosario Cordoba highway: its construction will allow the decongestion of merging traffic on rout 9, which is practically overflowing. Its inauguration is set for early 2003. It consists of four stretches: Cordoba-Pilar, already open; Rosario-Armstrong, open and working all the way to Roldan, will be completed early 2003; and Armstrong-Villa Maria, which its completion has priority in the budget of "Plan for Federal Infrastructure".

The city’s railroads are used mainly for freight services and are the main railroad system in the country. The services, which are the responsibility of four different companies, connect the city with the rest of the country. The tracks that access Rosario are:

• Nuevo Central Argentino (NCA), tracks are 1.676 m wide: it has the concession of the access from Villa Diego. It communicates Rosario with Zárate (province of Buenos Aires) to the south, Córdoba to the west and Tucumán to the north. It also communicates with the stations Terminal 6, Nidera, La Plata Cereal, ACA, Genaro García, Punta Alvear and Dreyfuss. From Zárate (south), through the tracks, which are a concession of Trenes de Buenos Aires (TBA), Capital Federal can be access.
• Ferro Expreso Pampeano, 1.676 m: it communicates Rosario, through Villa Diego, with Bahía Blanca and its port, Ing White.
• Ferrocarril Buenos Aires al Pacífico (BAP), 1.676 m: communicates Rosario, through Villa Constitución, with the Cuyo region. It access Rosario from Villa Constitución through the NCA tracks.
• Ferrocarril Belgrano – Freight Lines, tracks are 1m wide: these line posses various tracks that link Rosario with the provinces of San Juan, La Rioja, Catamarca, Salta, Tucumán, Jujuy and Chaco. Furthermore, it links with Bolivia through the stations Pocitos (Argentina) and Yacuiba (Bolivia). In addition, the company Trenes de Buenos Aires (TBA) offers a service for passengers from Rosario to Buenos Aires.

The city counts with an international airport, located about 15Km from downtown Rosario. The aerostation has two main access routs: Rout 9 and George Newbery Avenue, both connected by the Rosario Circunvalación avenue  In addition, there is a future project for the construction of a direct access rout to the Rosario-Córdoba highway.

The bus terminal Mariano Moreno has daily services to all the province capitals in the country. It also has daily departures to bordering countries (Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile and combinations to Perú and Bolivia). The most frequent rout is Rosario-Buenos Aires, with departures every 30 minutes.

We have all the companies that bring telephone services in Argentina, operating in the city. This includes analog and cellular services and data transmissions. Rosario is one of the nodes for the telecommunications company Red Impsat. Impsat Broadband is a fiber optics network for data and voice transmission in Latin America. Broadband generates a considerable improvement on fiber optics, satellite and wireless connections for services such as high speed access to the internet, intranet and extranet, e-commerce and other telecommunication services that use broadband. The network’s structure includes local metropolitan networks made up of fiber optics rings, fiber connections to buildings in densely populated zones and wireless broadband connections to less populated zones, linked by a long distance backbone that uses advanced technology like fiber dispersion "no zero" and DWDM equipment to connect 170 cities in Latin America. Some of the Impsat Broadband sectors are already in service offering fiber optics capacity within and among the main cities in the country as well as Brazil and Colombia. By the end of 2000, the network will connect the main cities in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Chile, using fiber optics links complemented by our already existent satellite networks.