Spanish company nationalised by Bolivia

PRESIDENT of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has nationalised a third Spanish company.

The enterprise, SABSA, runs the airports in the cities of La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. It is a joint venture between Barcelona-based Abertis Infrastructuras SA and AENA, Spain’s airport authority.

The move has angered Spain which regards the move as an “unfriendly act, combined with other similar measures”that the  leftist government has recently taken against Spanish companies.The ministry said it would “reconsider the whole of relations” with Bolivia.

In his first year in office, Morales renegotiated contracts with Repsol,and other companies so that Bolivia would receive a greater share of revenues from natural gas production. In December he took over subsidiaries of Basque company Iberdrola, and in May he nationalised a company belonging to Red Electrica.

Morales has nationalized several foreign companies since first taking office in 2006 that he considers public utilities and therefore are the property the Bolivian people.