The private initiative in Zulia state: Engine of the national sugar business (1910-1936)

A group of Zulian social actors performed a fundamental role in the national sugar industry process. This strategic alliance of men and women of different origin settled down the basis for the sugar project impulse in a medium and long run that diversified the Venezuelan economy in the last century. The private initiative in Zulia decided to be organized to establish at the Lake of Maracaibo south, in the once Sucre district, the Agricultural Union (1909), Central Sugar of Zulia (1912) and Central Sugar Gran Vía (1917) corporations, with native capital. But, in 1913, emerges a new social collective linked with foreign capital to establish Venezuela Sugar Company that later will be known as Central Venezuela, which displaced the business of the first companies to be catapulted as the most important producer corporation of sugar in the country. Central Venezuela, under command of the Paris family, was breaking through in the national sugar market and at the same time became a loyal and safety supplier of the international market. Paris collective headed the rising industry that prompted the sugar business to extend its action in different spheres of the country economy and politics. Its influence in Zulia, Andean and Caracas societies facilitated the concentration of the necessary lands for the agricultural exploitation, particularly of the sugar cane, which gave them greater capacity of development and manoeuvre in different corridors of power. The cane commerce and its derived components stimulated the economic dynamics with the deepening of the sugar industrialization process that became genesis of the national sugar business.