The drop that Argentine exports have been registering this year places shipments abroad in physical terms at their lowest level since the 2009 international crisis, according to an analysis carried out by the consultancy Development of International Business (DNI) led by the former executive director of the ExportAr Foundation, Marcelo Elizondo.
According to Indec official figures, in the first seven months of the year the value of exports fell 17% as a consequence of a decrease of 17% in prices and no variation in quantities.
"This occurs because while the volumes of manufactured exports have fallen, this has been offset by a better harvest, which allows the amount of tons discarded to be equaled," Elizondo said in this regard.
However, according to the document, beyond the drop in international prices that affects the value of sales, in the last five years the quantity exported also decreased.
Thus, between 2001 and 2007, the exports measured in volumes grew more than the prices received (148% against 138%). Then the rise in the terms of trade of 2008 put the evolution of prices since 2001 above the rise in quantities, while if you measure 2001 against 2009 it is verified that prices and quantities had grown in the same proportion (143%) until that moment.
In this line, according to DNI, if the evolution exhibited in the first 7 months throughout the year is maintained, Argentina will end 2015 with the same quantities exported as in 2014, which means that they will not go beyond a 57% above than it exported in 2001.
“It is often argued that the decline in foreign sales is strongly explained by lower prices. However, if only the tons shipped are measured, the reduction in sales abroad is marked, "said Elizondo.
"Thus, if you analyze what happens in 2015, Argentina is exporting the smallest quantities since 2009," he warned.
In this line and based on official figures, DNI calculated that Argentina exported in 2014 less than in each of the years since the beginning of the second decade of the century and predicted that this year the situation will be similar.
"The most likely thing is that the fall is even greater because in the first half of the year the record crop of agriculture played," Elizondo explained in dialogue with this newspaper.
In this line, the consultant pointed out that although it has been said that since 2011 the decreasing prices have explained the fall in income from external sales, Argentina exported a 12% less last year -excluding the price factor and measuring only physical quantities- that in 2011.
Thus measured in physical volumes, Argentine exports are barely 5% above the level they exhibited in 2008.
Along these lines, Elizondo warned that since previous price increases are not expected to be repeated in the coming years, “it is probable that strong improvements in systematic productivity will have to occur, or else exports will have difficulty growing again "
SOURCE: CHRONIST