Agricultural producers do not rule out carrying out a forceful measure to claim the Government for urgent measures to alleviate the situation caused by drought, inflation and the different exchange rates with which they are forced to do their operations.
In the context of a key meeting that representatives of the countryside and the Government will have on Monday, and in the midst of a general assembly scheduled for Tuesday the 28th, convened by the Argentine Agrarian Federation, the head of the entity, Carlos Achetoni, declared this week that the sector feels “helpless and upset” by the obligation to pay withholdings “at a time when there is no harvest.”
The representative of the Liaison Table also assured that they expected more initiatives from the Government to alleviate fiscal and financial pressure, but “until now the AFIP embargoes and lawsuits have continued and there is no debt refinancing.”
In addition to the drought and inflation, Achetoni assured that the exchange rate duality imposes additional challenges. “It means that 50% of the international value of production is cut off,” he said. “It is very difficult to produce in blue dollars and sell in official dollars,” the producer complained regarding the exchange rate. He explained that the “microclimate” that is generated with different types of dollars breaks “when we have to bring imported inputs or when merchandise from another country that we produce in Argentina enters” and that a dollar that is not the official one is paid. “It’s not that they take pesos but that they take dollars and translate the official merchandise, so they compete unfairly with our production,” added the ruralista.
Regarding the retentions and taking into account that this is an electoral year, the leader does not see many prospects for a short-term solution. “The Government says that it cannot remove the withholdings and those that can arrive in 2023 say the same thing,” he assured, while he did not rule out a “strong demand” by the union following the assembly next week.
“Unfortunately it is the recurring story,” complained the ruralista in reference to the claims that they have been holding and on which they have not received a response from the Government.
For its part, the State continues concentrating efforts on controlling inflation, on consumers, and not so much on the production chain, hit by different factors. In this sense, the Secretary of Commerce, Matías Tombolini, participated in the presentation in the Senate of a bill for the creation of a “Code for the protection of consumers and users of the Nation”.
Tombolini stressed on that occasion that the intervention of the State is necessary “to do what Peronism always did: level the field.” He also added that this may imply “touching the interests of the concentrated sectors.”
The project seeks to stimulate citizen participation in defense of rights and promote sustainable consumption. On the other hand, regulate different forms of misleading and avoid situations that may be abusive to consumers.
The initiative was presented by national senator Anabel Fernández Sagasti, who stated that this law will protect “the rights of thousands of compatriots.”
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