Juan Pablo Valdés claimed before Gobierno nacional a differentiated energy rate for Corrientes and Norte Grande. The governor made the request during the 24ª Assembly of Governors of the regional bloc, held in Posadas, with the participation of Chief of Staff Diego Santilli and the Secretary General of Consejo Federal de Inversiones, Ignacio Lamothe. The meeting brought together leaders from the Northeast and Northwest of Argentina.
Valdés suggested that benefits for warm and very warm areas should be established through a specific law. He proposed using the scheme for cold areas as a reference and avoiding that the recognition depends on temporary decisions of the Gobierno nacional. The provinces of the Norte Grande would work on an initiative to turn the tariff compensation into a permanent policy.
The president also asked to extend the natural gas network to the Northeast. He pointed out that the objective is not limited to household supply: Corrientes needs gas to support production. According to him, the absence of this infrastructure reduces the competitiveness of activities such as the rice and forestry industries, which have to operate with other energy sources.
The agenda included demands for road investments and for the acceleration of works on national highways that cross the region. Valdés also requested a deeper implementation of Hidrovía Paraná-Paraguay to improve logistics and facilitate the exit of production. Electricity, gas, roads, and river transport were presented as components of the same constraint on regional development.
The governors also analyzed the possible impact of El Niño. The discussion included hydroclimatic scenarios, warning systems, and preventive strategies against heavy rains, droughts, and fires. The discussion linked infrastructure and energy with the provinces' capacity to anticipate events that can affect the population, production, and services.
Valdés highlighted coordination between the provinces as a tool to expand their negotiating capacity. The proposals made in Posadas do not yet constitute a tariff law, an executed gas pipeline expansion, or completed road works. Deadlines for execution or budget amounts for each claim were also not reported. The next verifiable results will be the presentation of the warm zone project, national budgetary decisions, and the physical progress of the infrastructure requested for Corrientes and Norte Grande.
