Argentinian Government to review airports and mail service concession contracts
The Argentinean government has decided for a shift on the strategy to renegotiate the concession contracts of the mail services and airports management, prior with a separate treatment, and now put into the same basket together with 61 contracts that have to be sorted out until end 2004. With this it becomes clear these contracts would be kept, with some adjustments. The administration previous to President Nestor Kirchner agreed to slash the annual fee from US$170mil to US$80mil to be paid by AA 2000 for the management of airports, and tied the future fee to the passenger traffic, while the required US$400mil investments would be made over a longer term. A Buenos Aires court however, suspended the measure. The logical step now would be to renegotiate the contract under new rules, while a decision has to be made on US$350mil unpaid fees. The mail service Correo Argentino, piled up a Pesos$500mil debt for unpaid fees since 1999, has applied for preventive bankruptcy, while its situation has to be tackled by the new administration.
Copyright: SABI (South American Business Information)
