Three months ago, the Ministry of the Economy changed the import authorization system: it canceled the SIMIs in force up to then and replaced them with SIRAs, with the promise of speeding up the procedures.
This change meant that the precautionary actions then in force added up $2.6 billionthey were mostly unloaded, according to customs.
“Before the implementation of SIRA, there was $2.6 billion in precaution now there are none“, said the head of customs, Guillermo Michel, in a meeting with the press.
The official specified that this occurred because “most of the companies that had presented the SIMI and had it awaiting resolution they were surrendering. And of the few interim orders filed since then, we have lost none.“.
The move from SIMI to SIRA implied the promise that after long delays in authorizing imports, they would now be guaranteed and with the foreign currency needed to carry them out within a maximum period of 180 days.
Customs are convinced that most of the lawsuits that importers brought to justice were not due to specific import problems, but to businessmen’s interest in overstocking at wholesale dollar prices. -$182- to then exploit the exchange rate gap which is around 100% and sell that commodity at a value closer to that of parallel dollars, which fluctuate between $340 of the MEP and of the $377 of the blue
Michel specified that they have taken over that 100 companies, the majority in the textile and electronic sector, concentrate 60% of the precautionary ones.
The official explanation is that the importers have renounced the precautionary measures because with the new system they have realized that since the controls are more exhaustive, they would have lost in the long run. But to this we must add that entrepreneurs know this if they persist in unfounded claims They can be sued for “abuse of prudence” and that this would prevent them from entering the new SIRA system and obtaining import authorisations.
However, the private sector continues to complain about barriers to the entry of goods into the country. Manufacturers of balanced foods, refrigerators, air conditioners, elevators are some of the articles that have publicly complained about the delay in granting the SIRA and who argue that this endangers the stock and production.
“We are monitoring which sectors say they are having problems. Although they tend to make broad statements on media and social media, usually when we ask them for details They do not refer to specific cases“, they indicate from the customs.
They specified that they have detected problems in the supply of input suppliers for Vaca Muerta. “We have developed a green channel for this item and also for courier imports from SMEs up to US$3,000.”
In addition, the customs has set up a “sanitary table” to speed up the entry of medical supplies and orthopedic products.
“The abusive use of precautionary measures threatens production and employment in our country. Above all, we have to deal with the Argentine occupation,” Michel reiterated.
In this sense, they reported that in the second half of 2022, when Michel took over customs after the arrival of Sergio Massa to the Ministry of Economy, 33,000 control interventions were carried out. The figure has more than doubled compared to the 14,134 transactions carried out in the first half of the year. Therefore, the charges and penalties applied amount to $1,018.4 millions, with an increase compared to the previous semester of 667%.
The most significant items on which the sanctions fell were mining, agricultural products, capital goods, medical supplies, agrochemicals, among others.
Throughout the country, the customs has 24 of its own scanners. They now operate an IDB loan with which they intend to buy five more scanners, at an estimated cost of $3 million each. “We need a big investment in technology and infrastructure,” Michel said.
At the same time, customs are pushing port operators to make investments to improve controls. 80% of the country’s imports enter the port of Buenos Aires, but only in Terminal 4 is there an Arco scanner, which allows for an exhaustive review of containers.
Based on this technology and subsequent reviews, it was found that 5% of the inspected containers have some kind of irregularitymostly related to smuggling.
To improve efficiency, Customs has encouraged the other terminals, all in the hands of private operators, to invest in a scanner of this type, which costs $6 million.
AQ
Source: Clarin
