Argentina's government formally opened the process of privatising Belgrano Cargas y Logística when Decree 67/2025 appeared in the Official Gazette on February 10. Rather than sell the freight-rail company as a single business, the order authorised a separation of activities and assets: rolling stock would be auctioned, while tracks and associated property and workshops would be offered under concession arrangements. The decision turned a broad political promise to shrink the state into a concrete, if still unfinished, infrastructure transaction.
Belgrano Cargas operates in a sector essential to carrying commodities from Argentina's interior to markets. The Buenos Aires Herald reported that its network extends across 17 provinces and serves grain transport. That makes the method of privatisation important beyond the company's balance sheet. Freight costs can affect the competitiveness of exporters far from major ports; access to the network matters for farmers, shippers and regional economies, not just prospective concessionaires.
What the decree did and did not do
The government's own published summary of Decree 67/2025 specified a public auction of rolling stock and public-works concessions for rail lines, adjoining property and the use of workshops. The Official Gazette records the decree as signed on February 7 and published on February 10. This was authorisation to begin a process, not evidence that buyers had been chosen, assets transferred or a completed sale had occurred. Reports referring to a different decree number for the announcement should not obscure the official text: the Belgrano Cargas authorisation is Decree 67/2025.
The government argued that the operator had depended on public funding and that private management would improve efficiency. As reported by the Herald, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni cited US$112 million of state financing over the preceding year. That is an administration claim about fiscal cost, not an independent estimate of what privatisation would save. The government also said an open-access infrastructure model should let competing freight operators use the tracks rather than hand one company an exclusive route.
A concession design can be as consequential as a sale price. Rail infrastructure requires continuing maintenance and capital spending; long routes serving sparsely populated areas may not generate the same returns as heavily trafficked corridors. Private bidders would want certainty on tariffs, upkeep and the rules governing third-party access. Producers and provincial governments would have reason to ask whether a change of operator improves actual service or merely moves liabilities and bargaining power. The decree offered a legal route to transactions, not a guarantee of their outcomes.
A larger reform meets a physical network
The privatisation push followed the 2024 Ley Bases, under which the government secured authority to put specified state companies on the block after negotiating with Congress. The Herald identified Belgrano Cargas as one of the companies remaining on that list. It also reported that, after the envisaged transactions, the company would be dissolved while the state would retain ownership of land and tracks under the proposed concession structure. Those details mark a distinction between private operation and an outright disposal of the whole rail network.
For Milei, this was an opportunity to show that his pledge to reduce subsidies could reach complicated public assets. For critics of state retrenchment, it raised questions about workers, service to less profitable regions and public control of strategic transport. The decisive tests lay ahead: the tender terms, investor interest, the protection of access for other operators and, eventually, the freight service delivered. A published decree by itself could answer none of them.
