Port Privatization and Competition in Colombia
Author: Juan Gaviria Date: 12/1/1998 (PDF, 200KB)
In Colombian ports the liberalization of labor practices along with the privatization of port services has resulted in large and rapid improvements in productivity, lower fees for port users, and very attractive returns for the new concessionaires. Productivity levels are higher than in most newly privatized ports in Latin America--where in many cases privatization has been accompanied by only limited competition. The improvements have been realized with low initial investments, though recently the concessionaires have gone beyond investing in shoreside equipment and are starting to invest in infrastructure expansion.