As regards navigation, the river is now divided into three sections. Maritime navigation ascends as far as Santa Fé. At Rosario and Santa Fé it goes right to the heart of the zone of cereals and to the fringe of the forest area. The upper section, between Rosario and Santa Fé, is less safe than the lower section, and this is reflected in the cost of freightage from Santa Fé.
The ports of the lower Paraná, between Santa Fé and Buenos Aires, may be classed in three categories. The ports of the first group are built on low land that is liable to be flooded. Every year the floods threaten their traffic. That is the character of Colastiné, east of Santa Fé, which specializes in shipping quebracho timber, or Ibicuy, on the Paraná Pavon, in the south of the province of Entre Rios, which, however, is protected by excellent works. The small ports of the barranca of the southern bank, on the main river and on the Paraná de las Palmas, form a second group. They ship meat (Campana and Zarate) and cereals (San Nicolas and Villa Constitución), and they are admirably adapted for this by their natural situation. Steamers come right up to the cliff without any need of special works on the shore. The sacks of wheat are let into the ships down sloping gangways from stores excavated in the cliff or from wagons. None of these ports are equipped for receiving imports. The third group comprises ports with complete apparatus for both export and import. The chief of these is Rosario. It was the increase of imports between 1850 and 1860 that stimulated its early progress. To-day the tonnage of the goods unloaded at Rosario is nearly one-half the tonnage of the cereals shipped there. Yet, in spite of appearances, it is the imports that account mainly for the busy life of its quays. The port company does the unloading itself, as well as the handling and storing of the goods imported, but it is content to receive dues on all exports within the area for which it has a monopoly. Only a small part of the cereals exported uses its elevators. A deep-water port, equipped like that at Rosario for import and export, has just been constructed at Santa Fé. Already it competes with Colastiné for the export of quebracho. Its import trade is still small, as such trade requires large capital and a whole network of relations with the adjoining country, and that is not the work of a day.
The second section of the river stretches from Santa Fé to Corrientes, and is continued up the Paraguay. The transport of quebracho timber and tannic acid is the chief item of its trade. The maximum draught of the vessels it admits at normal low water is six feet. Some of the ports on the left bank (Esquina, Goya) and all the ports on the right bank (Reconquista, Barranqueras, etc.) are at some distance from the main bed, or lateral arms. The Chaco works have generally a flotilla of steamers and barges. It is the exporters of timber and extract of quebracho to Europe who most strongly demand the deepening of the bed of the Paraná above Santa Fé. Sailing ships share with the river steamers the transport of the products of the Paraguay and of Corrientes (hides, tobacco and maté). The transport of oranges alone from San Antonio, Villeta, Pilar and Humaïta represents an item of tens of thousands of tons.
The third section of the river stretches from Corrientes to Posadas, and beyond. Sailing ships have disappeared from this section, as they cannot make the Apipé rapids. Steamers of four and a-half feet draught and 150 tons are now used on it, but they cannot proceed at low water. They provide a direct service between Buenos Aires and Posadas, though the service is not very economical, because it does not permit them to use to the full the transport-capacity of the river below Corrientes. Most of the goods for Posadas are, therefore, trans-shipped at Ituzaingo, below the rapids, or at Corrientes. The steamboat companies which serve Posadas are obliged, in order to secure the economical transport of goods shipped on the upper Paraná, to maintain lines which go up the Paraguay as far as Asunción, and take on at Corrientes the goods that come from Posadas. Higher up, the falls of the Guayra and the Yguassu set an impassable limit to the enterprise of Argentine vessels. Boats on the stretch above Yguassu on the Paraná feed the railways of the Brazilian tableland. The traffic of the upper Paraná consists chiefly of maté from Misiones and cedar-planks from the Posadas saw-mills. Rafts of timber are stopped at Posadas and rarely follow the river further.
The Argentine statistics of navigation are obscure. They confuse under one heading the river-traffic between Posadas and Brazilian territory, or between Corrientes and the Paraguay, and the exports of the Pampean region to Europe. It is difficult to get from them an idea of the real traffic, or to distinguish the tonnage loaded or unloaded at each port from that which merely touches its quays in ships going up or coming down the river. They credit a score of ports with a total tonnage of (entries and clearances together) more than 500,000 tons.
At all events, they do enable us to distinguish between ports exclusively devoted to river traffic and those with direct relations to oversea ports. Nearly all the boats destined for the Paraná touch at Buenos Aires, which remains the chief importing centre, on the way up, and unload there. They then go empty to Rosario, San Nicolas, or Santa Fé to take on a full cargo of cereals or timber, and set out down the Paraná for Europe without calling at Buenos Aires. Clearances for interior navigation at the port of Buenos Aires are far more numerous than entries. From 1912 to 1914 Buenos Aires received on the average, coming from interior ports, 1,750,000 tons, of which 1,635,000 were cargo. It cleared for the same ports ships totalling 3,275,000 tons, of which 1,580,000 were in ballast. The latter figure fairly represents the tonnage of sea-going ships sent up river empty after discharging on the quays of Buenos Aires. At Rosario, San Nicolas and San Pedro, on the other hand, the tonnage of clearances for Argentine ports is much less than the tonnage of entries.[135] The total movement of goods at the port of Rosario is 410,000 tons entries and 375,000 tons clearances for interior navigation, and 1,100,000 tons entries and 1,824,000 tons clearances for navigation abroad.
According to Repossini's calculations the tonnage of exports on the lower Paraná south of Santa Fé rose in 1910 to 4,000,000 or 4,500,000. The imports, almost entirely confined to Rosario, were about a fourth of this figure. For the middle and upper Paraná, Repossini estimated the volume of the traffic at 800,000 tons, of which quebracho was two-fifths.
The navigation of the Paraná is one of the chief sources of the prosperity of Buenos Aires. Even if the development of the import trade at Rosario or Santa Fé is partly at the expense of the capital, and the boats laden with cereals do not stop at its quays, still the coasting traffic on the river is in great part meant for Buenos Aires. In returning, rather than go empty, the boats take cargoes of European products bought from the Buenos Aires importers. By means of the Paraná the import-trade sphere of influence of Buenos Aires reaches beyond the frontiers of Argentina, as far as Paraguay and part of Brazil. Buenos Aires is, moreover, the main centre for equipping the steamboats of the river. Its capital dominates the Paraná. Lastly, the Paraná supplies it with an export freight which must not be overlooked. It is at Buenos Aires that the hides, tobacco and timber and extracts of quebracho for oversea markets, shipped on schooners in the upper reaches of the river which are impassable for steamers, are trans-shipped for abroad.