Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, is expanding its international consulting and planning activities to the South American water sector. Recently, the company’s senior officials signed a series of agreements in Argentina, with the aim of building comprehensive master plans for the water sector, which in recent years has suffered from climate change and the destabilization of the ecological balance. These changes have led the Argentinian government to provide long-term planning and control, primarily for agriculture and households, while relying on Israeli innovation and the ability to integrate the intelligent use of various natural resources.
The new agreements are with five provinces - Catamarca, La Rioja, Rio Negro, Formosa and Santa Cruz. In the first three provinces, Mekorot will develop a master plan, while in the last two provinces, Mekorot will serve as a controlling body to implement plans that have already been approved. The total financial scope of the new agreements is estimated at NIS 11 million.
The new series of agreements joins two other contracts signed in August 2022 in Argentina with the provinces of Mendoza and San Juan, two regions located in central Argentina that have an extensive agricultural economy, primarily in grapes and the wine industry, that provide over 90% of Argentina’s wine production. The new agreements bring the total number of the company’s connections in Argentina to seven, such that Mekorot is now active in 30% of the country’s territory.
The agreements were signed in the presence of Argentina’s Minister of the Interior Eduardo de Pedro, Minister of Public Works Gabriel Katofodis and Israeli Ambassador to Argentina, Eyal Sela, as well as the governors of the various provinces. Mekorot’s delegation was led by Chairman Yitzhak Aharonovich, Deputy CEO Dani Soffer, and senior commercial department officials Barak Graber and Dr. Diego Berger.
Chairman of the Board Aharonovich said after the signing that Mekorot sees the new agreements in Argentina as an opportunity to expand the company’s operations in Latin America and added that the company is engaged in talks to promote further operations there. “The new engagement in Argentina is an expansion of the company’s operations abroad, following extensive activity in the field in 2022 with the signing of engagements in India, Azerbaijan and Morocco. Mekorot is already active in Bahrain and the Kingdom of Jordan, and the company heads intend to continue to develop its consulting and planning services to various countries, with the understanding that the climate crisis and the water shortage will accompany the various countries for many years to come,” he concluded.