Representatives of the private sector expressed their agreement with the government’s management of the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway up to now, although they pointed out that there is expectation for the call for bids for the new concession of the country’s most important waterway.
“The feeling it gives is that they are handled seriously. They are working well,” told Télam the director of Information and Economic Studies of the Rosario Stock Exchange (BCR), Julio Calzada, who considered that the General Administration of Ports (AGP)in charge of the Waterway since September of last year “has given an image of solvency in management.”
The BCR economist maintained that “the operation in general lines is correct”, and stressed that “there are no major questions” to the way in which the body chaired by José Beni has been working.
In that sense, he pointed out that “the private ones, such as the Chamber of Commercial Ports, have been working together with the AGP and it works.”
“The system was not compromised, it continues to work fine”
Calzada recalled that “the AGP had already been working on dredging and beaconing in the Port of Buenos Aires,” and stressed that “there was quite an experience there, where the agency opened two business units.”
For its part, the president of the Rosario Stock Exchange, Miguel Simioni, He considered that what has been done so far by the AGP is “good”, and told this agency that this organization “is working” on calling a new tender.
“I rate what has been done so far well. There is anxiety when there is no certain date, but I know that work is being done on it,” said Simioni, who remarked that “the Stock Exchange has been working on the issue of the Waterway almost since its foundation and it has been helping a lot in technical aspects”.
The executive maintained that “an efficient and modern waterway is needed to serve all of the country’s production,” and considered that “a more certain date for the call for bids is necessary.”
“It is understandable that there were some challenges and setbacks that will be solved and hopefully there will be a certain date soon,” concluded the head of the BCR.
On your side, Guillermo Misiano, president of the PTP Groupone of the main port operators in Paraná, also considered that the management of the AGP “has been working well.”
“The system was not compromised, it continues to work well,” Misiano told Télam.
PTP manages terminals on the Waterway in the Buenos Aires cities of San Nicolás, Ramallo and Lima, Nueva Palmira (Uruguay) and Villeta (Paraguay), and is in the process of building two new ports: one in the Santa Fe de Villa Constitución and the other in Brazil.
“The weaknesses, perhaps because it is a transitory situation and that the main issue is not being resolved, are due to what we are experiencing with this historical downspout of the river, of the entire basin, which due to the limitations that exist in the regulations do not allow the AGP to carry out higher levels of dredging,” said the businessman.
He evaluated that “that is the weak point that it is having”, but pointed out that “it is not due to bad practice or bad management of the AGP”.
“On the contrary, it is a natural matter that, being a provisional administration, it does not have the legal tools to be able to deal with the contingencies posed by the Waterway,” said Misiano, who stated that “the great pending issue here is to definitively resolve the Waterway question, to start talking definitively about what the new management is going to be like, to think about a plan for 20 or 30 years, to know how deep it is going to work, to define what the navigation channels are going to be. It is the way through which the country’s exports leave and the foreign currency enters.”
The productivity of the work
The Waterway transports 80% of the merchandise exported by the country and enters 95% of its imports and along its 820 kilometers operate 18 ports that receive cargo transported in 1,200,000 trucks and 250,000 train cars per year.
Almost a year ago, on April 30, 2021, the concession that for 26 years was in the hands of a private group led by the Belgian company Jan de Nul expired.
However, the Government initially extended it for 90 days, but before that deadline expired, on July 1, President Alberto Fernández decided to leave the Hidrovía under state control for 12 months, starting on September 11, and grant the AGP the operation concession for the maintenance of the signaling system and dredging and re-dredging tasks, and the corresponding hydrological control of the main waterway between kilometer 1,238 of the Paraná River, a point called Confluence, up to the Natural Deep Waters in the outer Río de la Plata.
