| Monopolies. Bik, fortunately, Uruguayans are very pragmatic. During the 90s all the region was privatizing everithing and whe were told we were outdated. We waited and see. Five years later, Argentina had a lot of private monopolies instead of their old State Services, and stories of corruption and failures with public services throughout the region started to appear. We are don't like revolutionary changes one way or the other. We've looked and learned, and will open some tabs, and let others closed, as we feel convenient. The generation marketing is starting to open to new players. There are now some copanies selling energy to UTE (for example, the big Botnia Celulose plant). UTE has invested in two eolic fields and there will be regulations in the near future to coordinate the action of private generators in that area (even home or building mills). UTE is also joining ANCAP (the State owned oil monopoly) to generate energy from bio plants in the North. We don't "love" State monopolies, not even state participation in the economy. However, history has tought as that the mere existence of Uruguay is linked to the State and it's enterprises. As you say, Uruguay wouldn't be allmost full covered with energy supply if it weren't for UTE.It wouldn't be full cover by communications if it weren't for ANTEL. The Plan Ceibal (Uruguay's OLPC program) wouldn't have been possible if ANTEL didn't exist. No private Telco would have provided the necessary Internet connection for all schools (even rural) throughout the whole country for a price reasonable enough for us to pay it, much less for free as ANTEL did it. |
