An auto parts factory.
The unit of measurement was the Central Bank, when it decided that importers of inputs must obtain financing for 180 days. The commercial director of a major plastic products factory, itself a supplier to dozens of auto parts plastic component manufacturers, was the one who decided that he would use a future dollar to cover himself. And since it is from Rosario, the solution was left at home: decided to use the “Rofex dollar”, which is used by the Rosario stock exchange to negotiate securities at 180 days.
The next step was a short note, in which they set their new conditions. “Term of payment: invoice date 15 days. Exchange of reference Argentine pesos per dollar: Rofex 180 days”.
The current Rofex or Futures and Operations Market is the former general market for national products of Rosario, which manages the futures markets, both agricultural and financial.
The manager, in off, said that this was the formula to be able to continue delivering the goods. ” Today I don’t know what my cost isbut at the same time the terminals they push us to set a price for them. From there came the idea of a 180-day exchange insurance. Let’s put the Rofex index at the suggestion of a provincial official“.
This type of juggling has become part of the renewed skills of auto parts companies, a overcome the absence of dollars and the abundance of pesoswhich in turn have nowhere to put e take refuge in the purchase of goods.
The week that passed, as the dollar scratched 350 pesos and closed at just under $ 340, another auto parts company gave warning; sent a note to the car terminals announcing this in September it will paralyze its business.
This is the manufacturer Woodbridge, a branch of a Canadian multinational, where it warns that from September it will “paralyze” its production activities due to the lack of imported inputs and the impossibility of purchasing them in the country. it’s a note written defensively, to cover up against legal claims by car manufacturers.
“Woodbridge as a company is currently looking for global solutions to overcome these restrictions imposed by the BCRA, although so far the consequence of this situation is that in the third week of September we have to completely stop production operationsthus generating the impossibility of supplying all our customers who together represent 80% of the Argentine automotive market ”.
The local branch, based in Buenos Aires Fátima, is the leading supplier of seat head restraints.
This all occurs more than two weeks after the government announced that auto parts factories had a special window to access Central Bank dollars. At the end of this Friday, according to sources of auto parts companies, this system it was not yet operational.
That “benefit”, in any case, would serve about a part of the auto parts companies 50 of the 400 operating in the country. “The Central Bank system is not operational and, when it is, it will be used for specific cases, but it will not solve the problem. There are terminals that have already run out of space, so they have nothing to transfer”, say the sources of the Association. of the Auto Parts Manufacturers (AFAC).
The system in question is the one that allows an automotive terminal use the dollars immediately available, which the Central Bank sells to pay for vehicle imports. Instead of paying for those vehicles, the terminal now you can transfer those dollars to one of your suppliers. And it absorbs the 180-day financing that auto parts company was supposed to get.
The truth is that until Friday none of this had been possible, according to a round of consultations between terminals and auto parts. in the center they categorically denied it. “The system works,” they stressed over and over again. But when it was pointed out to them that there were many companies claiming otherwise, they ended up admitting that, perhaps, “there might be some CUIT (of an auto parts company) with problems.” And just in case, they appealed to the Chicana. “Nobody will run out of supplies for a couple of hours of waiting in a procedure “.
Luis Ceriotto
Source: Clarin
