The business associations of Ñuble met with Senator Loreto Carvajal, with the aim of addressing the challenge of generating a Special Economic Zone (ZEE) in the region, which promotes the creation of a food cluster, in order to promote development of small agriculture. In the instance, articulated by the director of Economic and Productive Development (Didepro) of the Municipality of Chillán, Renato Segura, the characteristics of this proposed public policy were analyzed.
The presidents of the Ñuble Farmers Association, Carlos González, and the Chillán Chamber of Commerce, Alejandro Lama, participated in the meeting, respectively, who supported the proposal.
“Our diagnosis is that the economic activity of the agricultural MSME of Ñuble is depreciating at increasing rates. Forestry activity, solar panels, wind farms, pleasant plots, the aging of the rural population, the low availability of water, the low installed power capacity for electrical feasibility in rural areas, the precarious connectivity, the precarious state of the roads and the low capacity to attract investments, among others, are the vectors that are contributing to destroying agricultural land,” said Segura, who also stated that “our proposal to confront this tragedy for the countryside of Ñuble is to generate a Special Economic Zone for the agricultural activity of Ñuble.”
The professional explained that “the SEZ is a public policy tool to be able to get regions out of poor situations, because they do not have the capacity to produce or attract investments. In many countries there are areas that lack attractions to attract investment. So, what an SEZ does is, first, focus on a common objective, that is, collect the potential that that territory has, in this case, agriculture, in order to define a set of short, medium and long-term actions, that aim to develop said sector. In Ñuble, for example, there are short-term policies that can be implemented by the Regional Government, and the idea is that the resources are aimed at strengthening those lines that allow the development, for example, of peasant family farming, through incorporation of technology, but with a market logic, that is, thinking regarding the entire value chain, not only in production, but also in the logistics distribution chain and how to reach the final consumer.”
“The ZEE is a simile of a cluster, in which all public and private actors come together, led by the regional governor, so that strategies can be developed in terms of generating greater activity in agriculture,” he explained. .
In this context, the director of Didepro maintained that “there is also support from parliamentarians from the area, since there are long-term policies that will probably require legal modifications or point to a legal framework that effectively allows the development of an agricultural policy in the country, which does not exist today.”
Regarding the meeting with the senator, Segura stated that “its objective is to generate instances in the different actors in the territory and outside the territory, to be able to coordinate the efforts that allow us to advance in the development of agricultural activity; And in that sense, those who are leading this are the productive unions of the region and there we join as Didepro, because we understand that the development of agriculture will benefit all economic sectors. Here there is a common effort, there is serious work that transcends the actors and is focused on the economic activity of the territory. “We are joining forces for work that can lift the region from its position of backwardness.”
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