To answer the dollar demand of one of the sectors with the greatest potential for generating foreign currency in the country, Serge Massa unveiled this Monday a battery of measures that aim to stimulate exports and investments among the companies of the knowledge economywith particular attention to the generation of “skilled work”.
Unlike what was announced last month for the agro-export sector, this program it is not a differential exchange ratebut one of a set of character measures permanent rather than trying to become a 30% exports of the digital economy to bring them to the 10 billion dollars in a year.
Massa stressed that the Knowledge Economy sector is “the important export complex in terms, not only of value, but of relative weight in the trade balance. We aspire to consolidate it as the third export complex of Argentina “.
“The challenge is not to see how we build the sector versus sector struggle in order to have foreign currency, to be able to flow our imports better or to be able to see how dividends are distributed with sectors that are fighting each other, but to grow on our incremental” , assured the Minister investigates other measures to contain the outflow of dollars after the end of the soybean dollar program.
At the top of the Kirchner Cultural Center, together with the Secretary of the Economy of Knowledge, Ariel Sujarchuk and the main representatives of the sector, Massa led the announcements: through a DNU that will be published in the next few days, the free availability of 20% of the dollars entering the country for investment projects exceeding 3 million dollarsdirected to exports.
In addition, companies in the sector will be able to freely dispose of even 30% of the dollars deriving from the increase in sales abroad. The Minister stressed that these dollars that will come out of the Central Bank’s Reserves will help companies in the sector to do so meet your talent demand and generate “skilled employment”.
The announcements were in line with what happened days ago. On the one hand, an Investment Promotion Regime for Exports of Knowledge Economy Assets will be created, targeting companies making investments of more than US $ 3 million, which they will be exempt from liquidation of 20% of the currencies in the free foreign exchange market.
These dollars can be used for “principal and interest payments.” economic or financial liabilities with the outside; Payment of profits and dividends which correspond to closed and certified financial statements; to monetary repatriation of non-residents, oa investments achieved by the Regime “, as explained in the Sujarchuk secretariat.
Companies can join the new Regime up to June 30, 2023 and they have 24 months to realize the investments from the approval of the project, extendable up to another 2 years.
Secondly, companies already registered in the Regime for the Promotion of the Knowledge Economy will be able to access 30% of the foreign currency they earn to increase their exports and then throw them in payment of wages. It is estimated that due to the exchange rate gap, at least a quarter of the exports of this segment stay in the informal market and they do not feed the reserves of the Central Bank.
Industry sources explained that Argentine legislation allows payment of up to 20% of wages “in kind” and that, despite this warning, companies in this sector have not been able to offer this differential to their employees until now because they had limited access to the foreign exchange market. Being able now to have part of the foreign currency, they may even have cash dollars to keep their employees.
“We are not setting an exchange rate, but a currency release“said Sujarchuk, adding:” If tomorrow there was no exchange gap, the same companies do you have these dollars available? what are the advantages cumulative up to 50%“.
Finally, it was announced the use of the tax credit bonus for employer charges will be made more flexible, for those companies that export up to 70% of annual turnover, transferable only once.
Source: Clarin
