The national government has announced the call for tender to privatize the Main Navigable Waterway, under a scheme that will once again be a private concession at the risk of the business sector, in which the State will no longer be involved in the management and maintenance of the waterway. The tender will be carried out by the Undersecretariat of Ports and Navigable Waterways, and offers will be accepted until January 29, 2025.

In an announcement made in the presence of key representatives from the private and productive sectors, Chief of Staff, Guillermo Francos, revealed that the bidding documents include a significant modernization of the management of the waterway, which handles around 80% of Argentina's foreign trade.

Among other measures, radar stations and satellite vessel tracking systems will be added. Additionally, the signage will be completely renewed to enhance navigation safety, and control measures will be increased to combat drug trafficking and terrorism.

The Chief of Staff noted that during meetings with the President of the Nation and governors of the coastal provinces, "everyone raised the need to reach an understanding" regarding the Main Navigable Waterway and celebrated that "we have been able to reconcile the various interests in this document."

To conclude, Francos emphasized that this new tender is "more comprehensive and more modern because there are many issues that were not included in the previous concession but have now been incorporated." He also detailed that "this tender allows all these modernization measures that occur during the execution period of the contracts to be incorporated, making them increasingly useful for international trade."

For his part, the president of the Chamber of Private Commercial Ports, Luis Zubizarreta, highlighted that "if we want to develop our Argentina, it is critical to give it competitiveness," as "we are a country far from the world, and therefore, we have a natural disadvantage. To narrow this gap, we need efficient logistics."

He added that "this milestone will allow 80% of our foreign trade to have more efficient and lower logistics costs," which will have "a direct impact on what the producer receives and what the consumer pays."

"Another very important point of this great step is that the tender is at the risk of the business sector, without state guarantees. This means that the cargo itself will pay for the works, and we don’t need the State to invest a single peso," he emphasized, continuing: "What we do need is an ambitious document that aims at a very efficient navigation system that allows us to compete."

"With the realization of this milestone, the producer will have the incentive to produce even more, so we will be on track to make that leap in development and the generation of quality jobs," concluded Zubizarreta.

The bidding documents are the result of dialogue and joint work with users and provinces that use the waterway, which will undergo a deepening to 39 feet—starting with a unification of depths—on the Timbúes-Ocean segment. Dynamic methods will be used to establish new depths (over 39 feet), as well as new anchorage and overtaking zones, at any time during the contract, providing flexibility to a reality that is constantly developing and modernizing.

The future concessionaire, which will bring an end to the provisional state control of the Main Navigable Waterway, will be required to fulfill the work plan outlined in the tender documents and the new contract, which sets the priority stages of works to be carried out during the first five years of the concession.

As specified in the contract model, this is a 30-year tender, which will allow significant participation from the world’s most important companies in fluvial-maritime works. There will also be stringent requirements to ensure the track record and technical capacity of the companies that apply, as well as their financial solvency.

The event was attended by the Undersecretary of Ports and Navigable Waterways, Iñaki Arreseygor; the Executive Director of the Rosario Stock Exchange, Javier Cervio; the Vice President of the Transport Commission of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA), Juan Iocco; and the President of the Chamber of the Oilseed Industry of Argentina (CIARA) and the Center for Cereal Exporters (CEC), Gustavo Idígoras.