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Southern Cone - 1 July 2003

In brief: drug-taking; no bidders for airport

An official study into drug-taking among young people found that 20% of all Uruguayans at school or college, and under 17, had at least tried an illegal drug, the most common being marihuana. The only comfort for policymakers is that the drug experimentation is not rising: it increased by only one percentage point between 1999 and 2001. The researchers, from the Junta Nacional de Drogas (JND), said that the general perception was that drug use was rising faster. 

The JND is training teachers to understand and deal with drug issues to ensure that young people who try drugs do not become hooked. Its goal is to have two teachers trained in anti-drugs techniques in every school. 

There were no bidders at the third time of asking for the 20-year concession to run the Montevideo airport, Carrasco. Potential bidders said that the federal government had put in too many onerous terms and conditions. The government wanted the new mangers to pay US$15m over the life of the concession and to undertake investments of US$70m in the airport. The government also insisted that the winner could not charge landing fees of more than US$13 per person on flights to Buenos Aires and US$25 elsewhere. The government had dropped the expected number of passengers for the airport from 1.6m to 1.3m 

Among the putative bidders the leaders were Aeropuertos Argentinos 2000 and Aeropuertos de Chile from outside the country and two Uruguayan groups, Candysur and Neutral. 

The airport will continue to be managed by the ministry of defence. The (leftwing) opposition had suggested delaying the auction, but the defence minister, Yamandú Fau, had rejected this idea. He says that the government will make another attempt. Its original idea was that the airport should be handed over to the new owners in November this year and that work on remodelling the airport would start, at the latest, in April 2004. The expansion and overhaul work had to be completed by 2008, under the terms of the concession contract.

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