The aspiration of the National Port Administration (ANP) is to get close to last year's record figure.
For the third consecutive year, the Uruguayan port of Montevideo surpassed the 1 million TEU barrier. The activity included exports and imports from the Uruguayan country, as well as regional merchandise in transit.
According to the National Port Administration (ANP), Montevideo mobilized 1,049,741 TEUs (unit of measurement equivalent to a 20-foot container) until Tuesday, December 10.
According to information provided to El Observador by the ANP, there were 149,275 exports, 145,228 imports, 624,932 transfers of regional merchandise and 126,694 empty ones.
The activity included container operations at Terminal Cuenca del Plata (TCP, owned by the multinational Katoen Natie, with state participation) and those carried out in the public areas of the port by other authorized operators, mainly Montecon.
In 2022, the 1 million TEU threshold was surpassed for the first time with 1,084,812 TEUs. The number increased the following year, reaching 1,120,000 TEUs and consolidating its record for movements.
In addition, 478 container ships with an average draft of 12.77 metres arrived in the first nine months of the year.
The president of the ANP, Juan Curbelo, told El Observador that the port of Montevideo has “everything to continue consolidating itself as a hub port.” He added that the “policies implemented (during this period of government) were successful and should be maintained.”
The official estimate is that by the end of the year the figure could exceed 1,100,000 TEUs.
THE PORT OF 13 TO 14 METERS
Montevideo currently has a depth of 13 metres and work is already underway to increase it to 14 metres.
The work began after a political agreement was reached between the governments of Uruguay and Argentina in January of this year during a meeting prior to the Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Mercosur that took place in Asunción.
A week later, the Argentine delegation to the River Plate Administrative Commission (CARP) formally authorized the Uruguayan request.
The intention to dredge the port of Montevideo to 14 metres was an aspiration that had been going on for more than a decade. The first time was during the presidency of Cristina Fernández in 2013 when bilateral port relations were not going through their best moment.
The authorization process took years and was approved by Argentina in 2018. Only then was a key error made by the Uruguayan delegation to the CARP discovered. The document with the request, prepared by the ANP and the Ministry of Transport (MTOP), indicated that the required depth was 13 meters instead of 14. And that was what Argentina ended up approving.
In November 2022, the Uruguayan delegation reiterated the request and submitted documentation to support it. At the beginning of 2023, the Argentine delegation raised 28 objections in this regard.
The exchange of documentation lasted until the middle of last year and then stopped.
The tone changed with the assumption of Javier Milei as president in December 2023 and the subsequent political meeting a month later.
“There is a change of attitude. There is a logic of being partners and not competitors. And this imprint was set by the new Argentine government,” said Foreign Minister Omar Paganini at the time.
The Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs also commented on the CARP authorization in a press release.
"The Argentine government hopes that, in the future, projects presented in waters for common use will receive a quick and expeditious evaluation, within the framework of strengthening relations of friendship, cooperation and integration between both countries," he said.
