Francisco Jueguen, THE NATION
"It is not about taking care of the dollars," Augusto Costa predicted. On the contrary, he said. While some 50 executives from business chambers listened to him, the Secretary of Commerce promised that the information required from companies about their foreign exchange needs in 2016 only seeks to give predictability to the entire private sector.
In the Government they are confident that next year they will continue with the administration of commerce and with dollar quotas. This belief is, in itself, optimism for the electoral results.
In companies, especially the most important ones, disbelieve the official fervor. On the contrary, they warn that they only seek to signal the business sector so that, in the three months of management that remains for the Axel Kicillof team, the ruling party does not lose real firepower.
Yesterday the Secretary of Commerce asked the presidents of the business chambers to transmit to all the associated companies that they submit the investment, employment and foreign trade form for 2016 before the 19th of this month.
The official argument says that collecting this information is nothing new. Strictly speaking, they did it years ago. Confident, officials also believe that these data will be key to plan the administration of trade and define guidelines for next year.
The meeting was held yesterday at noon in the Belgrano Room of the Ministry of Commerce and lasted about 50 minutes. Cameras from all sectors, large, medium and small, attended, they said.
In one of the most important chambers, they told LA NACION that, a long time ago, Costa sought to imply several times that the current team was going to stay in 2016 in charge of the management in Commerce, but now they interpret these requests for information as an attempt not to lose power. “Several times he gave us to understand that they were going to stay. At some point, Costa thought about replacing Axel Kicillof. Now they ask for these things only because they do not want to show that they are already a lame duck ”, explained an important businessman.
"Costa made a review of what was done this year and spoke of the situation of the national and international economy," said Marcelo Girard, president of the Chamber of Manufacturers of Graphic Inks. "He asked companies to complete the form for 2016 beyond the fact that there may be another political color. The same was confident that it would be the same, "he added.
The truth is that, beyond the requests for information, the main government tool to manage trade, the advance import affidavits (DJAI), will lose their effective power since December, after a negative failure for the Government in the Organization. World Trade (WTO). "Costa added that what was done was very positive and recalled the discretion of other times," added the treasurer of the General Business Confederation (Cgera). Costa's reference was to his predecessor, Guillermo Moreno.
But yesterday's was not the only meeting of the Costa team with businessmen. The Secretary of Foreign Trade, Paula Español, received last Friday Isela Costantini, president of General Motors (GM) and the Association of Automotive Factories (Adefa). According to LA NACION, the situation in Brazil was discussed and the attempt to avoid problems due to the lack of supply of cars in the domestic market in the last quarter. Despite the fact that the government cut the dollar quota, the issue was not discussed, but it did have enough DJAIs to avoid further shocks.
SOURCE: THE NATION