MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine gov't to privatize major cargo railway line

Belgrano Cargas is oversized and overstaffed, Adorni explained

Argentine President Javier Milei has signed the decree ordering the key cargo railway Belgrano Cargas y Logística S.A. line privatized, Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni confirmed. “President Javier Milei has just signed the decree that initiates the process of total privatization of the Belgrano Cargas y Logística S.A. company,” he wrote on social media. The Argentine State “will cease to be the operator of the cargo railway services and all its infrastructure: rolling stock, tracks, workshops, and real estate,” Adorni also noted.

These railway lines were handed over to private capitals in 1999 under then-President Carlos Menem (1989-1999) but Belgrano Cargas returned to the State in 2008. The Libertarian Government had first announced its decision to privatize Belgrano Cargas in October but took no concrete steps in that direction.

Shortly after his inauguration, Milei included 41 state-owned companies as “subject to privatization.” But the list was cut down to 6 amid negotiations with the opposition. Belgrano Cargas is among those 6, together with Energía Argentina, Intercargo (airport ramp services) Aguas y Saneamientos Argentinos (drinking water and sewages); Sociedad Operadora Ferroviaria (passenger railways); and Corredores Viales (roads and toll highways).

A bill passed last year also allows the entry of private capital in Nucleoeléctrica Argentina (operator of nuclear power plants) and Yacimientos Carboníferos Río Turbio (YCRT, operator of a coal mine) in the south of the country). However, the Argentine Government must keep a majority stake in both cases.

According to Adorni, Belgrano Cargas was “obscenely loss-making” as well as notoriously overstaffed with 4,429 workers, including a large number of people in top positions. Belgrano Cargas was created through Resolution 471/2013 to group the three most important cargo lines nationwide: the former Belgrano, San Martín, and Urquiza Lines.

Its network is 7,600 kilometers long, crosses 17 provinces in the northwest and center of the country, and is key in the transportation of grains for export. To improve performance, it recently reached a cooperation agreement with China's CMEC to recover more than 1,500 kilometers of track.