MEXICO CITY (apro) .- The Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece) reported that Ferromex and Kansas City Southern Mexico (KCSM) operate the two largest rail networks in the country, concentrating 71% of the total network, in addition to moving 82% of the system load.
According to the preliminary version of the Study of competition in the public service of rail freight transport, these companies concentrate the concessions of the most important nodes in all the border crossings of the north of the country and ports with the highest volume of international trade such as Altamira, Guaymas, Manzanillo and Veracruz, among others.
The antitrust body specifies that a more symmetrical network design between concessionaires could allow more competition, by matching the bargaining power between competitors to access the other networks.
In the document, which identifies obstacles to the efficient operation of this service and proposes 25 recommendations to address them, Cofece concludes that, although the privatization of the railway sector increased the volume of products moved per kilometer, the railway network has practically not grown. what the participation of the railroad in the total transport of load is of 25% in comparison with other countries.
Among the inconsistencies found by Cofece is the fact that the network operates in a fragmented manner. That is, the rights of way that allow the trains of one concessionaire to transit on the tracks of another by charging a consideration, have restrictions for their use, and their interpretation is in charge of the same concessionaires, who in some cases condition its use.
On the other hand, the Regulatory Law of the Railway Service (LRSF), as well as its regulations, contemplate extensions to exclusivity under certain criteria; However, it is not specified how the analysis will be carried out to grant them.
As a result, extensions are authorized with effects on the competitive development of the network. For example, the 15-year extension granted to the exclusivity of the Tijuana-Tecate line to the Baja California government, and 36 years to the validity of the title (this was granted without making the investments that would sustain it).
On the other hand, the body headed by Alejandra Palacios pointed out that the Railway Transport Regulatory Agency (ARTF or Agency) lacks sufficient information to carry out its regulatory task.
The LRSF and its Regulation do not consider sanctions for non-compliance in the delivery of information in a timely manner, despite the fact that the Agency has the power to request it. On the other hand, it has not issued guidelines with clear criteria on the level of disaggregation and the periodicity with which information must be provided, nor is there a format for its collection.
Likewise, the absence of regulation for access to the routes in which the exclusivities of the concessionaires expire persists.
The Cofece report proposes that the network should be reconfigured as the current concessions and exclusivities expire. However, he warned, this measure cannot be carried out in the short term and neither be sufficient to guarantee the efficient operation of the railway network.
For this to work in an articulated way, he added that for the short term he made 25 recommendations on three aspects:
Remove obstacles that limit the use of existing rights of way and make it difficult to create new ones; establish a more expeditious procedure for regulating the tariff of towing rights in the first and last miles, when they make interline services more expensive and / or hinder, and strengthen the institutional design of ARTF so that it has sufficient information and powers to exercise its regulatory task.
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