:: Uruguay

The Oriental Republic of Uruguay is a representative democratic republic with a presidential system. It is a country located in the south eastern part of South America. With an area of approximately 180,000 square kilometers, it is home to around 3.5 million people. The capital Montevideo is the most important city in the country, with almost 2 million inhabitants.

Uruguay is located between Argentina and Brazil. Together with those countries mentioned and Paraguay, they are part of Mercosur – created in 1991. Furthermore, Uruguay is member of: United Nations, OEA, UNASUR, G77, and so on.

Uruguay is an agricultural export-oriented country, this is why resources such as rice, soybeans, corn, livestock and so on, are fundamental in the economy. In recent years, forest exploitation has become very important. The main industries are: slaugtherhouses, dairy and its derivatives, textile, paper, fertilizers, alcohol, cement and oil refining.

Besides, service industry is of the upmost importance in the country, which includes finances, logistics, transportation and communications as well as the growing IT sector – particularly software development. Moreover, Uruguay is the major per capita exporter of software in Latin America, and the third one in absolute terms. Tourism is another important income economic activity in our country.

In relation to goods transportation, Uruguay offers the International Carrasco Aiport, located in Canelones, within the Montevideo metropolitan area. The new Air Terminal was inaugurated on October 5, 2009. The old terminal today is a cargo terminal.

By the River Plate it is located the Port of Montevideo, which is our main commercial port and it is a very important transit area for Mercosur shipments. According to Uruguayan law, it is a “free port”, which allows cargo transit to be transported without any customs restrictions, with no limitation of goods storage time, allowing warehouse tasks, re-packing, re-labeling, classification, grouping and ungrouping, consolidation, manipulation and fractioning, and import tax exemptions.