According to Enrique Franco, Deputy Minister of Economic Relations and Integration, the measure imposed by Argentina to pay tolls on the waterway came as a surprise to the Paraguayan side and there is concern about it. In this sense, he said that a memorandum was sent to the neighboring country, expressing the foregoing and its objection to its implementation.
“We sent a note to its Argentine counterpart expressing the Paraguayan side’s concern and objection to the application of such a measure,” he explained to 920 AM. He added that the arguments were that the services were not compensated and that there was no agreement between the parties constituting the agreement.
He stated that there are two elements that draw attention, one is that Article 9 of the Waterway Agreement states that if you want to charge some kind of fee, it must be through consideration for a service received and if there is, there must be an agreement between the participating countries.
Read also: Paraguay’s river sector disavows the toll of losses imposed by Argentina
“The arguments are the lack of compensation in the section mentioned in the Argentine ruling. There is talk of a dredging service, but in this section, as they told us from Cafym, it normally travels between 10 and 12 feet of draught, i.e. no service is available for navigation,” he added.
In addition, he confirmed that they requested a meeting before the procedure was carried out. “In the memo we tell you that prior to implementation, this meeting is taking place and that we prefer a period of at least 180 days before the application is submitted and that at that time a conversation can take place at a technical level,” he said.
Read also: Kavim notes that losses on the waterway will affect the country’s economy
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