The park that houses the Iguazu Falls in Brazil will be modernized

Rio de Janeiro, 22 Mar The Iguazu National Park, whose waterfalls are one of the seven natural wonders of the world, will be modernized and will feature a cable car, with the million-dollar investment promised by the PNI Consortium, which was awarded on Tuesday the concession to manage it on the Brazilian side. Made up of the Cataratas de Iguazú and Construcap Group, the PNI Consortium plans investments of more than 500 million reais (102 million dollars) for new infrastructure and another 3 billion reais ($612 million) for the operation of the park over the next 30 years that the concession will last. The consortium was awarded the concession with a bid of 375 million reais (76 million dollars), 349.4 per cent higher than the base proposed by the Brazilian Government, and its sole opponent, the Iguazu Reserve Consortium, withdrew. The auction for the concession of the Park, held on Tuesday at the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange, is considered one of the “largest ever held in the sector”, according to the Ministry of Environment, because the reserve that houses the falls is a place that receives more than two million tourists from all over the world annually. For the Brazilian Government, the new concession has the potential to double the number of visitors to the park, with the expansion of tourist areas and planned investments for infrastructure. Created on January 10, 1939 and covering an area of 169,695 hectares, the Iguazu National Park is the second most visited in Brazil, behind only that of Tijuca, in Rio de Janeiro, known for housing the famous Christ the Redeemer on its hill of Corcovado. This reserve was awarded the title of Natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986.