ts in the year 2000, which shows an increase of 336%; this explosive growth motivates intense technical and economical studies for the need of a new expansion port.
The federal government, through the Secretary on Communications and Transport and the General Coordinator of Ports and the Merchant Marine, began working in May 1999 on the fourth stage of the enlargement of the port, without a doubt one of the most important investments in the maritime and portuary sector in the period of President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, the main objective of this work was to increase the depth of the port, from 7.5 meters to 12 meters in the navigation channel, and to 11.30 meters in the maneuvering basins, which will allow larger ships to dock meanwhile lowering the maritime freight costs; it was a great challenge, because the bottom of the ocean had to be dredged, which had a lot of rocks, and for this, the Mexican-Dutch company DAMEX was hired, and they had to use, during the dredging, two of the largest and most powerful dredgers in the World, the URSA and the ORANGE, producing four million three hundred thousand cubic feet of rocky material , a construction company of marine and portuary infrastructures along with Mexican technology built close to 40 hectares of filler for different purposes: First, the enlargement of the communication viaduct, from two to four lines, with a length of 4.5 kilometers; Second, three hectares for relocating the maritime customs offices; third, five hectares for the cruise line terminal, which will get a private investment of more than 60 million pesos (6.3 million dollars); fourth, 23 additional hectares to the original four, for building a terminal specifically for containers, and relocate the bulk terminal, enlarging its capacity of storage from 20,000 to 52,000 tons, and a larger area for the multiple uses terminal. Likewise, a position will be destined for installing a hydrocarbons unloading terminal, built by PEMEX, and with
