Puerto Bolívar is an urban parish and port city, part of the municipality of Machala, El Oro Province, Ecuador.

The Peruvian army had established a paratrooper unit in 1939 and successfully used it to seize the port on July 27, marking the first time in the Americas that airborne troops were used in combat.

[5][6][7] After the war, the agricultural development of El Oro Province improved the local economy in the following years, and the port was further expanded for overseas exports from 1964 to 1968.

[2] Ecuador and Peru signed a peace agreement in 1998, with resulted in the increase of commercial trade between the two countries.

The Binational Group for the Promotion of Private Investment (GBPIP) was formed to encourage the creation of a complementary binational port axis of the ports of Paita in Peru and Puerto Bolívar in Ecuador to increase maritime and land trade between the two countries.