In the midst of denouncing the appearance of “trout handlers” to unblock imports with the presumed consent of the authorities, the government acknowledged the existence of scams reported to the Court last February, but ignored the irregularities and suggested that imports will be lower this year due to lower growth, despite companies claiming to double them.
“In the vast majority of cases, there is a problem of managers or forwarders who raise situations that do not exist. In the case that has been reported, a criminal complaint has been made because they brought documentation and the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested it, we have an open channel for complaints that often end up in nothing due to lack of evidence, now there is and has always existed at all the levels ”, underlined by the economic team.
In this way, they have tried to mitigate the grievances that have been reported by La Nación shippers who charge 6 to 20% of the goods to the blue dollar in exchange for approvals from the Ministry of Economy, AFIP and Customs. This situation led Sergio Massa to issue a complaint three weeks ago, for which two people were arrested accused of false influence in approving import procedures.
Since October, the Government has tightened the constraints with the replacement of the SIMI import system with the SIRAscheme which added the intervention of Commerce, AFIP, Customs and the Central Bank. Shortages of foreign currency have led Massa to activate trade with China, explore a hitherto unsuccessful bank loan and seek import finance in Brazil, where Commerce Secretary Matías Tombolini is to negotiate.
According to a report by the Ministry of Economy, from October 17 to February 23 315,000 permits were requested and 236,000 authorized for US$ 27,000 million, which represents 76% of the total amount requested and an increase of 11% over the same period of the previous year. And of the nearly 22,000 companies that have submitted orders, mostly SMEs, 19,000 have been approved.
The official data, however, contrasts with the “multiple restrictions related to foreign trade” that the Argentine Businessmen’s Association (AEA) questioned on Wednesday. The slowness of the procedures and the need to anticipate imports led to a meeting last week with the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA) and the Food Industry Chamber (Copal). The UIA reported this in January 80% of those relieved face longer terms with SIRAs up to 180 days.
Tombolini and his undersecretary for business policy and management, Germán Cervantes, informed the entrepreneurs that they had approved 22,000 permits the previous weekend, almost 10% of what was authorized since October. Cervantes, a man of Massa’s kidney, is the key for businessmen to have the definitive signature for the authorization. “We told them we had different data and urgent requests to produce,” they said from the entity.
In a scenario where exports are expected to fall by $15 billion due to drought, Massa asked Houses for projections to “plan” access to dollars, but was surprised by the orders in 2023: COPAL asked him to import 58% more agriculture and fertilizers54% in construction, 28% in chemicals, while UIA 118% more in food and beverages, 33% in automobiles, 31% in agricultural machinery and 85% in energy inputs.
“We’ll fix the deviations, it’s crazy”, note in economics. There, they expect imports to fall this year in line with an economy that will grow by 2% -less than half of 2022-, although they predict that in February they will rise to $5.8 billion, exceeding US$5,384 million in January. The decline in activity impacted December in up to 10% year-on-year decline in the import of capital goods and intermediate goods, but officials link it to spare capacity and delays.
AQ
Source: Clarin
