“We’re not worried about competition, we’re worried about difference, we want a level playing field.” This is how the president of the Buenos Aires Chamber of Pig Producers, José Dodds, summarizes the sector’s anger at the the national government’s decision to allow the import of pork with differential treatment.
According to the industry, the measures announced by the Government, which will shorten the payment terms for food imports and at the same time eliminate the payment of profit proceeds and VAT on imports, were decided after a meeting of the Minister of Economy Luis Caputo with the supermarket sector, without consulting the Ministry of Agriculture. “These are extremely discriminatory measures against the national industrywhich will have to compete under unequal conditions since it will be forced to bear the costs of importing production, from which importers of finished products will be exempted,” the Argentine Pig Federation and the Chamber of Sausage Producers indicated in a joint note
As Dodds explained in a conversation with Clarion, The whole conflict can be illustrated with the Brazilian bondiola. “That cut is not consumed there, so they throw it here at a ridiculous, dumping price, and even the government allows you not to pay taxes, when local producers have to import protein nuclei and other inputs for production by paying all the taxes ”, he comments, and adds an essential spice to the controversy. Those bondiola imported from Brazil with preferential treatment are produced using ractopamine, a food additive that promotes growth in pigs and whose use is not regulated in Argentina. “AND a drug that improves production by 15%.. Here it is approved but cannot be used because Senasa never did the necessary follow-up. And imported meat contains ractopamine,” says Dodds. Then, without hiding his anger, he suggests that in many cases imported meat does not respect the cold chain, and warns that in the meantime the profitability of Argentine producers is seriously compromised: “Today, anyone who has a barn with 200 sows and doesn’t get a conversion rate better than three kilos of feed per kilo of meat produced is losing money.”
Focusing on the local equation, the representative of the pork sector assures that pork prices have followed inflation far behind and warns that it is necessary to put a magnifying glass on some links in the commercial chain that take advantage of the situation to obtain higher margins highlighting the prices. “Since the beginning of the year, the price of live pork has fallen by more than 35%, from 1,155 pesos to 744, thus putting downward pressure on the prices of pork products purchased by Argentine consumers . Perhaps this trend is not reflected in some large chains as the promotions end up hiding the actual prices,” he says.
From December to today, according to what was reported by the pig sector, the prices of fresh chorizo, cooked ham, shoulder and salami, recorded by the CPI of the City of Buenos Aires, have increased by 29, 32, 34 and 33 respectively. percent. , less than half of the accumulated inflation measured by the national CPI for the same period.
“We don’t want an advantage, but we also don’t want unfair competition. That is why we are calling on the Government to review its decision to avoid unnecessary harm to our producers and industries,” Dodds summed up.
Source: Clarin
