Argentina has a maritime coast of 4000 km and among otheres, two navigable rivers: the Paraná and the Uruguay. Before joining and forming the Río de la Plata both rivers run through industrial and agricultural land with high production rates.

After a while, the communication and transportation needs generated port development, which now includes more than one hundred ports that can be classified into two types: fluvial: from Iguazú port up to La Plata port and maritime: from Mar del Plata (Buenos Aires province) to Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego province).

In spite of this important development of the port facilities, there was no orderly and systematic legislation concerning the port activity in Argentina. Several regulations were enforced as from the National Constitution and the Civil Code, but still no law was passed for enacting the order and system of this economic area.

In 1956, the Harbor General Administration is created as a state-owned company. It exploited and administrated the whole national harbor system, except for few private docks, generally related to a specific industrial activity.

In 1979, law 22018 on Harbor Facilities of Grain Storage is passed. This law allowed the existence of private terminals for handling these goods. Under the umbrella of this law, many facilities were built and managed by individuals, mostly in the lower area of the Parana river.

These new facilities endowed with state-of-the-art technology and high efficiency in goods handling quickly absorbed most of the cereal and by-products domestic traffic of this area, thus replacing the National Grain Association, which was the only State Department carrying out this activity.

These new port facilities and the need to grant them legal regulations for their functioning, summed up to the need of an organic, general and orderly regulation for the public and private harbor activities in the country, led to the enforcement of the Harbor Act, which is the reference framework for the classification of the existing system and the development of every future activity.

This process was speeded up in the 90's, when the port issue was included in the general state transformation policies.

So, in 1992, the government enforced Law No 24093, known as the Port Activities Law, which had to do with the qualification, administration and operation of the state-owned and private ports already existing or to be created in the country.

Article 11 of this law authorized the harbor transfer from the state to the provinces where they were located. In the case of the Buenos Aires, Bahía Blanca, Quequén, Rosario and Santa Fe harbors, article 12 set forth the creation of private companies or non-state entities who would be in charge of the administration and exploitation of these harbors.

These entities had to be organized assuring the participation of related private companies, including operators, service companies, producers, users and workers related to the activity. The province and the municipality had also to be represented.

This prior condition was complied with by the Buenos Aires Province through Law No 11414, creating the Consortium for the Administration of the Bahía Blanca Harbor, as a non-state owned public right entity who is in charge of the administration and exploitation of the Bahía Blanca port area.

In this way, the Bahía Blanca Harbor, was one of the first ports mentioned in article 12 of the Law for Port Activities who appointed an administrator. Therefore, as from September 1, 1993, the FIRST AUTONOMOUS PORT OF THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC was formed, thus leading the transformation process of the Argentine port system.