LatinNews Daily - 7 January 2025

*Argentina’s President Javier Milei has signed a decree creating the Agencia Nacional de Puertos y Navegación (Anpyn), a new national port authority that will replace the deputy ministry of ports and navigable waterways (Subsecretaría de Puertos y Vías Navegables), which sat under the economy ministry, and the Administración General de Puertos Sociedad Anónima Unipersonal (AGP), the former port authority. The Anpyn, which will sit under the economy ministry as an autonomous body, will now act as the sole entity responsible for the country’s ports, with the aim of “eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy and avoiding the overlapping of functions, through the elimination and replacement of agencies by a new entity with unity of action and a reduced structure, making rational use of available resource”. Among other things, the Anpyn will be responsible for charging tolls on the Paraguay-Paraná waterway, which the Milei administration plans to privatise. Once the public bidding on the waterway is completed, the Anpyn will establish “the procedures and mechanisms to carry out the control and supervision” of the new operator of the waterway. Announcing the dissolution of the AGP and creation of the Anpyn on social media on 3 January, the presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni stated that 79% of the AGP’s workforce would be dismissed and its leadership team removed “therefore improving efficiency and transparency as well as achieving lower costs”. Adorni claimed the AGP was “a den of corruption and privileges”. The move forms part of a wider push by the Milei government to downsize the state, which is leading to significant cuts to the public sector workforce.