BUENOS AIRES: Centre of River, Fishing & Maritime Cabotage Captains and Officers controls all push boats in the Waterway, claims Harispe’s Merchant Fleet bill ‘dooms it to extinction’
A small Argentine union is threatening to block trade in the waterway through which the breadbasket country exports 75 percent of its grain, if Congress, which is controlled by Peronist President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s Victory Front, passes into law a bill fostered by pro-government Deputy Gastón Harispe.
The Centre of River, Fishing and Maritime Cabotage Captains and Officers claims that the Merchant Navy and Shipbuilding Industry Bill spearheaded by Harispe would “doom it to extinction” after in the 1990s neo-conservative Peronist President Carlos Menem dismantled most of those erstwhile flourishing sectors.
Gustavo Martínez Campos, (Victory Front-Chaco), plans to present an alternative bill in Congress on March 18.
Martínez Campos’ and Harispe’s bills are backed by different business and union sectors.
“If the Harispe bill is passed, we will consider a full strike which would bring to a halt both national and international trade in the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway,” Merchant Captain Jorge Bianchi, acting secretary of the union, told the Herald.
“Our union controls 100 percent of port push boats, 95 percent of sand ships, the little which is left of the national cabotage fleet and Waterway regional navigation system with the Argentine flag, and tanker ships that load and unload fuel (bunker) in river waters.”
The 3,400-kilometre long “hidrovía” is shared by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. On its banks is Argentina’s Greater Rosario Port Complex, one of the world’s leading food exporting hubs.
Harispe, a deputy from the province of Buenos Aires who is the vice-chairman of the Lower House’s Maritime, Fluvial, Ports and Fishing Affairs Committee, last month relaunched his initiative that last year lost Parliamentary status due to the lack of legislative thrust.
Harispe says that the main architect of the initiative is Horacio Tettamanti, the Undersecretary for Ports and Navigable Ways, who owns one of the country’s main builders of smaller vessels and their repairs.
Tettamanti says that the bill is a key piece in outgoing President Fernández de Kirchner’s “national development model” launched in 2003 by her predecessor and late husband Néstor Kirchner.
Pro-government legislators say they expect the Harispe Bill to be passed into law before October’s presidential elections.
The union is calling its 3,000 members to go to Congress on August 18 to back the Martínez Campos Bill.
What are, in your view, the leading advantages of the Martínez Campos Bill?
To begin with, it does not discriminate against the river fleet via the maritime fleet.
Then, it allows foreign river-bound ships entering Argentina with the benefits of Argentine-flagged ships regime under Decree 1010 of 2004 or any similar regime to be adopted, in order to have a minimum security river crew.
Also, it allows the import of push tug-boats and their convoy of barges for waterway navigation. The Harispe Bill doesn’t allow the import of any kind of vessel, not even push boats, which are necessary to recover cargo transport in the Waterway of which Argentina currently has only three percent, while Paraguay has about 85 percent and most of the remainder goes to Bolivian-flagged ships.
What are the main objections to Harispe’s Bill?
It doesn’t foster the building of Argentine-flagged ships and, if passed into law, would cause the loss of 3,000 maritime, river and fishing jobs, dooming river and fishing workers in the Waterway, and national river cabotage workers to extinction at the hands of shipyards and maritime officers. (Our 3,000 members are not necessarily the same 3,000 ones whose jobs would disappear if the Harispe Bill is passed.)
Then, for the existence of any kind of fleet, tax incentives are necessary to be able to compete, as have done Paraguay and Bolivia which over the past 10 years have increased their fleet by 736 percent and 640 percent respectively. Over that same period, Argentina’s national merchant river fleet has lost 76 ships of different kinds (push boats, sand transport ships, and tanker vessels) of the about 400 it had. In the Paraguay-Paraná there are only four Argentine-flagged push boats.
Could you offer a breakdown of the Harispe’s Bill leading articles?
In its original wording, Article 2, item c) left fishing vessels out from the promotion regime. Now those ships — which are regulated by their own Law No. 24,922 — have been included in the Bill but with no advantage at all. There is no benefit for vessels below 5,000 DWT. And it is worth highlighting that the biggest river fishing vessel is 3,100 DWT with which, if this Bill is passed, no fishing boats will be imported under any modality and they will have to be built in Argentina. But we don’t understand the minimum limit of 5,000 DWT when Argentine shipyards are able to build 60,000 DWT ships.
Neither we understand why the Bill was amended and now Article 14 bans imported used vessels from integrating the Argentine river merchant fleet when in the original draft it was allowed.
Article 15 fully prevents the incorporation of below 5,000 DWT foreign-flagged ships leased with no crew — mainly push tug-boats, dredges and sand extraction ones.
Cargo in the Waterway is projected to double to 40 million tons over the next 10 years. Amid that scenario, under Harispe’s Bill, we wouldn’t be able to place just a single ship. Furthermore, in this competition we would not dislodge Paraguay and Bolivia, but just occupy what Argentina should have under that projection.
You mean at a national level?
No, I always refer to the Waterway, not to the national river cabotage, which is a captive of this system. No port tug boats or sand ships can be brought from abroad. We accept that those vessels which are captive of the national shipping system be built in national shipyards.
Article 19 bans the leasing with a purchase option of used, foreign-built vessels with no crew. What is your view?
We cannot wait three years, which is what the building of a push tug boat can take. The cargo is there today. We don’t know what market will be there in three years. And with this ban we cannot even bring in those ships under the leasing modality.
What else would you highlight?
Articles 22 and 27 establish that Argentine shipowners having an order to build, rebuild or revamp ships in Argentine shipyards will be allowed to lease vessels with no crew for 200 percent of hatch capacity in the case of maritime ships and 100 percent in the case of river ships. The discrimination against the river sector is ununderstandable. Also, Article 32 establishes that for foreign ships leased with no crew an enjoying the Argentine flag regime under Decree 1010, the minimum security crew will be determined by the country whose flag is being hoisted. This implies that those ships will maintain a maritime crew despite the fact that their destination is inland (river) waters. This even goes against norms of the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
Article 42 has sparked a lot of controversy by stating that ship-owners willing to apply for the naval leasing system must be registered in Argentina and own at least 51% of the corporate capital.
Within the merchant navy’s prevailing subdued situation, with very little possibilities of any kind of investment, you cannot impose that threshold. Already without that limitation there are very few fully net Argentine ship-owners ready to invest in a national fleet. With this clause, investment possibilities are further reduced.
What is your opinion about a proposed trust to finance the shipping sector?
This is Article 47. All Argentines will be contributing with our taxes to a trust fund that, in the best scenario, will serve to build foreign, not national ships. Harispe’s Bill doesn’t allow the recovery of a fluvial merchant fleet, or a fishing one, and only very little of a maritime one. Then, Article 47 also includes casino boats mentioned in Article 2, item c). It is hard to understand how funding is fostered to build ships for games of chance, but not to build a river push boat.
