The Chief of Staff, Guillermo Francosannounced the beginning of the privatization of the Hidrovía with a 30-year contractthis Tuesday at the headquarters of the General Administration of Ports, in Puerto Madero, after meeting with businessmen from the sector.
In this way, the Trunk Waterway will once again be a private concession, at business risk, and in which the State will no longer be linked to the management and maintenance of the road. Said tender will be carried out by the Undersecretariat of Ports and Navigable Waterways, and Offers will be received until January 29, 2025.
As specified in the model contract, it is a tender for a period of 30 years, which “will allow broad participation by the most important companies in the world in terms of river-maritime works.” In addition, there will be strong demands that guarantee the track record and technical capacity of the companies that apply, as well as their financial solvency.
Likewise, the future concessionaire, which will put an end to the provisional nationalization of the Trunk Waterway, must comply with the works plan established in the bidding documents and the new contract, which determines the stages of priority works that must be carried out in the first five years of the concession.
Guillermo Francos’ announcement
In his announcement, Francos announced that the specifications contemplate a strong modernization of the management of the waterway, through which nearly 80% of Argentine foreign trade circulates. In addition, he explained that they will add bases with radars and satellite ship tracking systems. Furthermore, it will completely renew the signage and measures will be increased control for the fight against drug trafficking and terrorism.
Along these lines, he stated that during the meetings they held with Javier Milei and the governors of the coastal provinces, ”everyone has raised the need to reach an understanding” on the Trunk Navigable Way and celebrated that they have “been able to reconcile the different interests in this document.”
Subsequently, he stressed that said tender is “more complete, more modern because there are many issues that were not in the previous concession and that have been included in this one”, and that “all these modernization measures that occur during the execution period of the contracts are allowed to be incorporated in a way that make them increasingly useful for international trade.
On the other hand, Luis Zubizarretathe president of the Chamber of Private Commercial Ports, declared: ”If we want to develop our Argentina, It is critical to give competitiveness”, since ”we are a country that is far from the world and, therefore, we have a natural disadvantage. To get closer we need efficient logistics.”
“This milestone will allow 80% of our foreign trade to have more efficient and lower logistics rates,” which will have “a direct impact on what the producer receives and what the consumer pays,” he assured, adding: ”Another very important point of this great step is that The tender is at the business’s risk, without State guarantees.. That is to say, here it is the burden itself that is going to pay for the work, and we do not need the State to contribute a peso,” he stressed, and continued: ”What we do need is a document that is ambitious, and that aims at a “very efficient navigation system that allows us to provide that competition.”
”With the achievement of this milestone, the producer will have the incentive to produce even more, so we will be aimed at taking that leap of development and generation of quality employment,” he concluded.
Source: Ambito
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