The National Ports and Navigation Agency (ANPYN) has initiated the procedure for prior observations to the tender documents for the concession of the Trunk Navigable Waterway (Vía Navegable Troncal), the main artery of Argentina's foreign trade. According to Resolution 61/2025, published in the Official Gazette, interested parties will have 10 calendar days to submit their comments on the technical and legal project documents. This measure, signed by the executive director of ANPYN, Iñaki Miguel Arreseygor, declares the «Procedure for Prior Observations to the projects of Technical Specifications and Bases and Particular Conditions» open. The call for tenders aims to select a concessionaire for «the modernization, expansion, operation, and maintenance of the signaling system, dredging and redredging tasks, and maintenance of the trunk navigable waterway». The geographical scope of the future concession covers «from kilometer 1238 of the Paraná River, point called Confluence, to the Natural Deep Waters Zone in the outer Río de la Plata, currently at kilometer 239.1 of the Punta Indio channel, via the Engineer Emilio Mitrey Channel, Paraná de las Palmas River, Paraná Bravo River, Paraná Guazú River, Talavera River, Paraná–Atlantic Ocean». The scheme will be a «public works concession under a national and international public tender at entrepreneurial risk without state guarantee», which means the future concessionaire will assume all commercial and financial risks of the operation without state guarantees. The resolution underscores the strategic importance of the waterway for the national economy, as it concentrates the country's main port logistics traffic, aggregates nearly 60 port terminals along its course, and constitutes the river route through which approximately 80% of the country's exports are transported. The new process was initiated after the failure of Public Tender No. 1/2024. To correct the course, ANPYN called for consultation instances with different sectors. As part of this process, the agency received international technical assistance. On May 28, 2025, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between ANPYN and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which establishes cooperation and facilitates collaboration between the parties on matters of common interest. The United Nations body participated in the Interdisciplinary Dialogue Tables convened by Resolution 18 of April 8, 2025, which culminated in a Recommendations and Best Practices report, including contributions and observations of a legal, technical, and economic nature. Observations must be submitted in writing within 10 days of the publication date using the official form approved as Annex I of the resolution, available on the agency's website. Observations that do not comply with the established requirements will not be considered. Once the consultation period is closed, the Legal and Administrative Coordination and Technical Coordination managements of ANPYN will have to intervene in the analysis, ordering, and response to the observations, elevating a Final Joint Report, which will be published on the agency's website for a period of ten (10) days.
