Argentina’s president Javier Milei is planning to privatise operations on the Paraguay-Paraná waterway, a key shipping route in the region, according to a report by The Guardian.
Since taking office last December, Milei had pledged to privatise a number of state assets, with the Paraguay-Paraná waterway being the latest, the 21 November report said.
Announcing the decision on 19 November, cabinet chief Guillermo Francos said Argentina would no longer manage, or maintain the waterway.
A 30-year concession would involve a “major modernisation of the management of the waterway” which would “gradually boost international trade”, Francos was quoted as saying.
At more than 3,400km long, the waterway provided inland areas of Paraguay, Bolivia and southern Brazil with access to the sea, The Guardian wrote. The waterway was of strategic importance for Argentina and its neighbours, transporting soyabeans and grains overseas, with almost 80% of Argentine foreign trade channelled through it.
“This milestone will allow 80% of our foreign trade to have more efficient and lower logistics rates,” Chamber of Private Commercial Ports president Luis Zubizarreta said.
However, local communities had raised concerns that the plans could lead to environmental damage and destroy their way of life, the report said.
According to Juan Carlos García, who was born in the Paraná delta and is a descendant of the Indigenous Guaraní people, increased shipping would lead to higher levels of pollution and more dredging activities, disrupting local habitats.
After being privatised in the 1990s, the waterway was brought back under state control several years ago, The Guardian wrote.
Although Milei has proposed other privatisations since coming into office, including that of state airline Aerolíneas Argentinas and the rail sector’s main state-run cargo firm, Trenes Argentinos Cargas, the Paraguay-Paraná proposal was “the biggest and most important privatisation” the administration had undertaken to date, according to New York-based geopolitical consultancy firm Horizon Engage’s director for the Americas Marcelo J Garcia.
“The way the process goes will also have geopolitical implications,” Garcia said. “It is a major test for the Milei administration’s capacity to reform and improve the com-petitiveness of Argentina’s economy.”