Bolivia's President, Evo Morales, has announced that Bolivia will not compensate Spanish infrastructure company Abertis for the nationalization of its local airport unit SABSA in February.

Morales, however, said he wanted to accelerate compensation to Spanish utility Iberdrola, whose assets were expropiated last year.

Morales alleged SABSA had failed to fulfill investment commitments in the three international airports it ran. He said that Abertis should be the one paying Bolivia.

Abertis had asked for $90 million in compensation. The firm had been negotiating a friendly agreement with Bolivia for months. The company had suspended an arbitration, started before the nationalization, because the government's wouldn't let it hike airport charges.

In 1997, TBI won the concession to manage the three largest airports in the country: El Alto - La Paz, Viru Viru - Santa Cruz and J. Wilstermann - Cochabamba when they were privatized. TBI was then acquired by the Spanish group Abertis Airports in 2005.