In just over a week, Foreign Minister Diana Mondino will tour the city Malaysia, Vietnam and Japan, alternative markets to China and which have an important link with Argentina.
The tour has a purpose political and commercial and precedes the others he intends to do Brazil, the United States and China itself in the next months. And it differs from the more ideological nature of the trips that President Javier Milei makes, and from those that he will make in June to Spain, Ukraine, Germany, France.
“It’s not a casual journey. While order and deregulation are sought internally, externally we are looking for commercial agreements that also establish rulesand which are accompanied by decisions such as that of allowing Argentina to join the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). imposes standards“he stressed Clarion the Secretary for International Economic Relations of the Farnesina, Marcelo Cima.
If at the beginning the government put all its cards in one thing Free trade agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, to which it has now returned “freezer” After the protests of French farmers and their European counterparts, in addition to the re-election to the European presidency hoped for by Ursula Von der Leyen, now the libertarians will go around the world to sell Argentina but with another, less protectionist premise: they consider that imports they are an essential part of international trade.
The fact is that with Mondino and the political part of the Ministry they are organizing this tour which includes meetings with Foreign Ministers, with the ministers of Commerce and Agriculture of the three destinationsand in some cases with prime ministers.
As of this Thursday the list is not yet closed, but it is expected that businessmen will travel and carry out business trips as they did in the past. Among them are Pablo Abbate, vice president of nuclear management at INVAP; David Craig, president of Agencia Marítima Multimar-NYK Group; Mario Alejandro Croce, CEO of IMPSA; Ezequiel Vallejos Meana, Director of Toyota Argentina; Tomás Zymnis, director of Devesa Azul Natural Beef and Mariana Cortes, of Joan of Arc among many others.
No such trips have been carried out in the last four years. First of all due to the coronavirus quarantine. Later because in Cima’s position it was Cecilia Todesca who worked to give her a gender profile rather than an economic one to the Secretary of International Trade.
About Japan, Vietnam and Malaysia
Argentina’s relationship with Japan cannot be compared, for example, to that of Brazil, but it is broad and active despite the ups and downs it has had since the 2001 default. Japan is a major member of the International Monetary Fund and vote Argentine debt payment program
But a recent sign warns of the withdrawal of Japanese companies from the country. Between 2019 and today Almost 30 remain. There were 102 and there would be 70 left in 2023, according to sources at the Japanese embassy in Argentina.
In this regard, it is known that the Japanese ambassador in Buenos Aires, Hiroshi Yamauchi, He hopes Javier Milei’s new government will place emphasis on free trade and investment. And he asks for congressional approval two international treaties, one on the elimination of double taxation and another on investment promotion. Both were approved last year by the Japanese Parliament and in Argentina they have been sleeping in parliamentarians’ offices for more than three years.
Although China is Argentina’s second largest trading partner, Vietnam was consolidating itself as the most important buyer of Argentine agro-industrial products in Asia.
In 2023, 55.9 million tons of agroindustrial products were shipped from Argentina, the lowest volume since 2009.
As for Malaysia, trade with that country reached over $578 million in 2023, 7.3% less than in 2022, due to slowing global demand, falling commodity prices and geopolitical uncertainty, but it is a market that is extremely compatible with Argentina.
The challenging global economic outlook in 2023 has negatively affected international trade, including Malaysia’s trade performance, which contracted. This coincided with that of other key trading partners, such as China, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia, which also experienced negative trade growth.
The trade balance between Malaysia and Argentina, like that with Vietnam, has systematically favored Argentina, due to the considerable imports of agricultural products such as cereals and balanced feeds.
Source: Clarin
