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Bolivia to nationalize rail operator: reports
AFP
LA PAZ
Petroleumworld.com 07 17 07Bolivian President Evo Morales plans to nationalize the South American country's railway, which operates routes running to neighboring countries, news reports said Monday.
Morales's socialist government has already taken control of parts of Bolivia's energy sector and has announced plans to take control of ENTEL telecommunications company, which is half-owned by the Italian company Euro Telecom International.
The newest move would reverse the 1996 privatization of the railway Empresa Nacional de Ferrocarriles, or ENFE, which runs domestic services and links to Argentina, Brazil and Chile.
According to the reports, Chile's Luksic Group owns 50 percent ENFE.
Morales said Luksic purchased the railway with the promise of investing some 13 million dollars, but never followed through.
"There was never investment, but divestment, in the Bolivian people and in and our industries, and that is why we have begun the nationalization of the railroad," Morales said Sunday at the inauguration of a tourist project at Lake Titicaca.
Morales's principal opposition group, Podemos, backed his decision, so long as "it is not like Morales's other false nationalizations," lawmaker Carlos Klinsky said.
The president's backers in the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, said the decision was news to them. "We do not know anything," a lawmaker told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The railway consists of 2,261 kilometers (1,400 miles) of track and carries daily 2,000 tonnes of minerals, agricultural and industrial goods.
AFP 16 2107 GMT 07 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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