From a hamlet of local fishing communities during the early days of the Indian independence struggle and a few decades later, Visakhapatnam grew economically; the rise has been so quick that the city was identified as one of the fastest-growing in the world, economically and demographically. Several factors contributed to its economic growth, including the natural harbour, its location between Madras and Calcutta, access to NH5 and a developed network of railways which changed the hamlet into an industrial city. It has developed into a hub for heavy industry. The Visakhapatnam Port (the largest in the country) was a gateway contributing to the development of the petroleum, steel and fertiliser industries. The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (recently expanded from 3.1 to 6.3 million ton in its daily cargo handling capacity) and Hindustan Petroleum were the two multi-billion-dollar investments that put Visakhapatnam on the industrial map. The city has two N.T.P.C. power plants to fill its power needs. Visakhapatnam also hosts the headquarters of the Dredging Corporation of India. It is a hub for iron ore and other mineral exports; ore from Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh is transported to Visakhapatnam by rail and road transport. From the port, minerals are exported by ship to China and other countries. Visakhapatnam district and its surrounding area have bauxite reserves of 1,000 MT, manganese ore and titanium reserves in its beach sand.
Visakhapatnam also owes its economic growth to the availability of an educated English-speaking workforce; English is the first language in many institutions of higher education in the city. The availability of an educated workforce allowed information technology enabled services (ITES) companies such as Encore India HSBC, IBM Daksh, Sutherland and Acclaris to flourish. The city has 102 small and medium software and call-centre companies, of which about 10 began operations from 2005–2007
