ARGENTINA. The government and Argentina’s private sector airports operator, Aeropuertos Argentina 2000 (AA2000) are negotiating a new, five-month contract that will give the state the power to decide on investments, Aeropuertos Argentina 2000 president Ernesto Gutierrez said last week.
“It will be totally different than the two previous [contracts],” said Gutierrez speaking to local reporters. “The idea of the technical advisers is to institute a master plan of works that isn’t the concessionaire who decides them, but rather the state.”
Gutierrez said the temporary concession will be signed during the first two weeks of December and will expire in May, after which the two sides will work out a longer term agreement. The five-month contract will commit AA2000 to infrastructure investments of US$400 million over the next two years.
In early October, the government suspended the contract with AA2000 that the previous administration had signed with the concessionaire (The Moodie Report, 9 October 2003). The company’s contract had been renewed by former President Eduardo Duhalde on 20 May, five days before current President Nestor Kirchner took office.
Central to the dispute between the government and AA2000 is the amount and spread of investments made in various airports. The company said its new contract may include compensation for part of the US$600 million infrastructure investment it has made, whereas only US$80 million has been officially recognised in accordance with the original contract.
