A survey of companies for 2023 shows that they expect to increase their turnover by 7% and their exports by 23%

A survey of small and medium-sized industrial enterprises found that they did growth expectations for next year, both in billing as in investment and employment. And his main bet for next year pays off get dollars through more exports.

The sample consists of a survey between 179 SMEs that make up the group’s value chain Techint, through your schedule ProPymeswhich recorded billing levels in 2022 higher than the 2021 data, as well as increases in exports, investments and personnel.

For next year, companies have expressed growth expectations of 7% on your billing levels in quantity, of 7% in investments and of 2% in the creation of new jobs.

One datum that stood out in the expectations is that of exports: they forecast, as a whole, a 23% increase in the volume exported compared to the end of this year.

The ProPymes program covers almost a thousand companies supplying the different companies of the Techint group in Argentina: Ternium, Tenaris, Tecpetrol and Techint Engineering & Construction. 179 companies were interviewed in this universe.

“We are closing another year that has brought us many and different challenges. First was the pandemic. Subsequently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine drastically changed the scenario and impacted energy prices worldwide. US-China trade tensions, the threat of a China-Taiwan conflict and rising interest rates to curb broad-based inflation have completed a complex picture for our industry,” she said. Martin BerardiCEO of Ternium Argentina, during the opening of the ProPymes seminar, which took place on Thursday morning in La Rural.

In front of more than 700 participants, Berardi added: “All these factors make us think that we are beginning to move an end of time. Globalization as we have seen it is under scrutiny, geopolitics are changing and increased global awareness of caring for the environment is rapidly changing the agenda of countries.”

The first edition of the ProPymes program took place at the Hilton hotelon December 19, 2001two days before the fall of Fernando De la Rúa’s government, recalled Berardi, who took advantage of the almost rounded figure of two decades to make a quick assessment:

• . The genesis of that crisis was in the previous recession of 1999, which showed us that the value chain was very weak and if we didn’t start working in the chain we had no future. We started with 72 companies that started trusting, with doubts. We started from what we knew how to do best, with training, how to promote exports and how to manage institutional issues.

• At the beginning we were Siderar and Siderca and then Tecpetrol and then Techint Construcciones and today, with the various supply chains, we are more than 1,000 companies.

• The rebound that Argentina had in 2003 helped us build the foundations of the program, we saw that there were benefits for everyone in this initiative.

• The 2008 global financial crisis caught us a little more armed. Demand has fallen by 60% but we have taken the opportunity to train our staff, the panic has not spread. And after China’s resurgence, things fell back into place.

• It was your idea to bring your family, your partners. And so we worked until we reached family protocols, to move from family businesses to families of entrepreneurs.

• In 2014 we encouraged the tech gene to pass on work with technical schools and bring them into their areas of influence. Today we reach 43 schools across the country, which will have a very important future impact.

• Between 2017 and 2018, the Techint Group made a significant investment in the Fortín de Piedra deposit (in Vaca Muerta), in record time. This included more than 1,000 ProPymes program companies in this process.

• Thanks to these projects, Argentina is on the way to becoming a liquefied natural gas exporter, which we are all doing, with the value chain.

• In 2020 the pandemic arrived and we had to share protocols, see how to manage this sovereign mess that interrupted everything. But as a supply chain we had to maintain production to supply the food industry, to supply galvanized sheets.

• Then came the 2021 recovery, bringing changes in consumption patterns and a serious challenge to the supply chain. This disruption was less in Argentina than elsewhere, thanks to chain work.

“We are now witnessing the launch of the ProPymes Medio Ambiente programme,” Berardi concluded his presentation. “Global warming will mark our agenda and we must work quickly, because it will mark international trade. If we are to sell our products, we must embrace this agenda, both for good reasons and out of necessity.