2023-09-11 23:50:23
ASUNCION (Reuters) – The governments of Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay asked Argentina to stop applying restrictive measures to navigation through the Paraguay-Paraná waterway, after the nation detained a vessel due to charging a controversial toll.
The five countries are partners in the river channel, which is more than 3,400 kilometers long, crucial for transporting grain to ports.
Paraguay has questioned the charging of a toll on the Argentine section of the waterway. The neighboring country claims that the tariff is justified by the maintenance costs. Tension increased last week, with the embargo and ban on the departure of a boat carrying fuel from the Paraguayan company Mercurio Group, which was supposed to set sail for Asunción.
Paraguay obtained support from the other partners, for a joint statement that regretted the application of the toll, considered an action established “unilaterally and arbitrarily” and “outside” the agreements “and current international regulatory provisions”.
In the statement, the countries expressed “special concern as this is a restriction on freedom of transit and strategic and sensitive goods for a signatory country that has compromised its fuel supply and which could affect the price of such input”.
Paraguay recently said it will go to the Mercosur Permanent Review Court to resolve the dispute.
The waterway, a natural river transport corridor that passes through the Paraná and Paraguay rivers, is key to transporting soy that Argentina imports and uses to make olive oil and flour.
Of the 7.19 million tons of soy that the country imported in the first seven months of this year, around 50.9% originated in Paraguay and 45.2% in Brazil, according to official data from Argentina.
Argentine processors significantly increased their soybean purchases from neighboring countries due to the historic drought that halved the harvest in the 2022/2023 season.
(Reporting by Daniela Desantis in Asunción; additional reporting by Maximilian Heath and Lucila Sigal in Buenos Aires)
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