Ships are moored at a port on the Parana River in Santa Fe, Argentina, December 21, 2020. REUTERS/Stringer
ASUNCION, Sept 11 (Reuters) – Argentina must collect tolls on a crucial waterway, the country’s energy chief said on Monday after meeting with Paraguayan officials, as a multi-nation conflict over fees for ships carrying grains and other exports intensifies.
Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay are urging Argentina to stop applying the tolls, arguing they restrict navigation on South America’s mighty Paraguay-Parana rivers.
“Argentina’s view is that we need to charge this toll,” Energy Secretary Flavia Royon told reporters after returning from talks in Paraguay with the country’s foreign minister.
But she appeared to suggest there was room for negotiation.
“The conversation recognized that its necessary to charge a toll for functionality, but to also have a mechanism for dialog over its amount and how it’s implemented,” she added.
Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay issued a joint statement on Sunday blasting as “unilateral and arbitrary” Argentina’s decision to seize a barge from Mercurio Group, a Paraguayan shipping company, to collect a toll, adding its actions could affect supply and prices.
The barge was released on Monday after paying the toll, a company spokesperson told local radio.
Argentine authorities say tolls on the Paraguay-Parana waterway, a key transport route to the sea for inland areas of Paraguay, Bolivia and southern Brazil, are needed to maintain the 3,400 km (2,110 mile) channel that ends at Buenos Aires.
Argentina uses the Parana to ship its own massive farm exports, especially processed soybeans, corn and wheat. But the country recently saw its main cash-crops battered by drought, and has imported over 7 million metric tons of soybeans in the first seven months of this year, around half from Paraguay and most of the rest from Brazil, according to official data.
Paraguay recently announced it will go to the Mercosur trade bloc Permanent Review Court to resolve the dispute.
(Reporting by Daniela Desantis in Asuncion; Additional reporting by Maximilian Heath and Lucila Sigal in Buenos Aires; Writing by Valentine Hilaire; editing by Timothy Gardner and Stephen Coates)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2023.
Join the gCaptain Club for curated content, insider opinions, and vibrant community discussions.
Join the 109,770 members that receive our newsletter.
Have a news tip? Let us know.
A powerful hurricane-force low pressure system in the North Pacific Ocean is generating extraordinary sea conditions, with significant wave heights reaching 65.77 feet (20 meters), according to the National Weather...
U.S. container ports recorded their fourteenth consecutive month of growth in November, with inbound volumes surging 13.1% year-over-year across the nation’s ten largest ports, according to the latest report from...
President Biden has taken a significant step toward ocean conservation by transmitting the High Seas Treaty to the Senate for ratification, marking a potential watershed moment for marine protection. The...
Maritime and offshore news trusted by our 109,770 members delivered daily straight to your inbox.
Essential news coupled with the finest maritime content sourced from across the globe.
Sign Up
Join The Club
