The government confirmed on Wednesday that it will seek to push ahead with the project privatization of passenger trainsa business for which they already have “many companies interested”.
The Secretary of Transport said this in a meeting with journalists at Casa Rosada, Franco Mogettaand the head of the Temporary Unit for the Transformation of Public Companies, Diego Chaher. Clarín and network journalists were excluded from that call. TN.
The lines Roca, Belgrano Sur, Sarmiento, San Martín and Mitrein the hands of the national state – the Urquiza and Belgrano Norte are still privately owned – carries approx 27 million passengers (not unique) who pay for the ticket and demanded public spending equal to in the first nine months of 2024 $528,778 million in subsidies37% less than the same period last year.
Loads Belgrano
Official confirmation that the privatization of passenger trains is proceeding came after spokesman Manuel Adorni’s announcement – without taking questions – about the sale to private individuals through the split of public companies. Argentine Cargo and Logistics Trains (TAC, better known as Belgrano Cargas)which includes three freight lines: Belgrano itself, San Martín and Urquiza.
The company is vital for exports of agricultural products (mainly soybeans) and minerals (lithium and copper).
Opera 7,600 kilometers of roads which will now be leased out to private companies, keeping the tracks and land owned by the National State, and has 4,429 employeesa workforce which according to experts close to Macrismo exceeds by 1,000 people the necessary to have an economically reasonable operational balance point.
In 2023, TAC reported an operating deficit of $112 millionas reported by Adorni, who omitted it The same company recently celebrated reaching balance (zero deficit) in early 2024, through cost reductions and tariff increases.
Even though the Presidency announced that Belgrano Cargas, under state control, transports the same amount of tonnes as 15 years ago, while agricultural production has multiplied by 6 in the last 50 years, the truth is that The National Commission for the Regulation of Transport (CNRT) shows that loads of the three lines grew in that period from 5 million tonnes to 8.4 million in 2022, the full year before the drought..
The proposed model involves “instrumentation seven grant processes differentiated: a concession of the road with the right to collect the toll, which provides for the transfer of the affected employees onto it; two locomotive concessions that will encourage competition between their respective drivers; two wagon concessions and two workshop concessions which include associated employees.
Furthermore, a model of “concession of free access infrastructures -“open access“-; That is, the concessionaire will have the obligation to allow passage to all operators who wish to transport goods via these routes, thus avoiding monopolistic behaviour”.
According to what you consulted Clarion to a rail market specialist near Macrismo, this division of the business will “fail”. “When you scale back an already small business, you eliminate investment incentives. Argentina transports between 20 and 25 million tons of goods per year, while Brazil transports 500 million. Both have 4 operating companies in the system ” the source said.
These four signatures represent the State itself on the TAC lines; the group Techint at FerroExpreso Pampeano (FEPSA); General Deheza Oiler (AGD) in the Nuevo Central Argentino (NCA); AND Black Hill in Ferrosur Roca.
The country needs investments of around 6 billion dollars in infrastructure in its 15 thousand kilometers of networksomething which – experts understand – would only be practicable for a private company with a unified business or with tariffs so high as to make producers less competitive.
In this sense, Galileo Vidonispecialist in Transport Policy and Planning at the National University of San Martín (UNSAM), close to Peronism through the Center for Metropolitan Studies, noted: “The railway infrastructure is a sunk cost and it is not profitable to support it by a private. It is not possible to pay for road maintenance with tolls or fees.“.
And he put it into context: “There is no model of privatization and separation of infrastructure in the world. A failed example was that of the United Kingdom, where they did it and then the State had to take charge.”
Source: Clarin
