-Uruguayan international carriers met with the Senate Transportation Commission to discuss the critical situation in which the sector finds itself, which requires “urgent solutions”.
A delegation from the Chamber of International Land Transportation (CATIDU) began a series of meetings this week with legislators from the different parliamentary benches to report on the serious situation that the sector is going through and present the claims that have not been heard by the government until now. .
This Wednesday, the representatives met first with the Broad Front bench and then with the members of the Senate Transportation Commission. In these instances, it was recalled that the Ministry of Economy has been requested for some time to take “urgent” measures to eliminate the asymmetries that exist in relation to the countries of the region to alleviate the crisis situation that the sector is going through in Uruguay.
It was explained to the senators that competitiveness has been losing in recent years, mainly with Argentina, due to the difference in the exchange rate, which has led Uruguay to lose important participation in the sector.
“Historically, Uruguayan and Argentine trucks divided the market by 50%, and today we do not reach 15%,” said Diego Martínez Paleo, a member of CATIDU.
For this reason, the Chamber of International Land Transport of Uruguay proposed as a possible solution before the Transport Commission “to prevent Argentine companies from charging in cash in Uruguay, since when they charge in dollars, they take it to the Argentine black market and multiply it by three,” Martinez said.
It was even reported that several press interviews have come out “in which it is said that Argentine carriers come to look for the dollars. One possible solution is to force them to make bank transfers to collect the freight,” said the CATIDU member.
“We have come to the Senate Transportation Committee to make this and other proposals to try to improve competitiveness. They agreed that they were going to treat him. We still don’t have a solution,” Martinez lamented.
Uruguayan international land transport is a sector in which 3,800 vehicles work, and has nearly 10,000 direct and indirect employees. Likewise, CATIDU denounced great differences in patent payments with other countries in the region, since Uruguay pays 38 times more than its neighbors and to this is added high salaries for the award, which range from US$ 500 to US$ 3,000 per driver.
“You have to define if you want to have a national fleet or have logistics in the country without Uruguayan fleets, because they are forcing us to change countries,” warned Martínez.
He also argued that “it would be unusual to reach a conflict over issues that mostly have no cost to the State, in others they would make it collect more taxes, and in others the cost is not representative, since it would be a benefit for all. and it would allow sustaining a quality and efficient service over time, which is one more link in the country’s productive chain”.
From CATIDU, legislators were assured that the Ministry of Economy did not adopt measures to guarantee “fair competition with companies from the region that operate in the country”, something that has been the subject of complaints for a year.
“We need Uruguay to take a mirror measure to that of the neighboring country, which involves bank transfers of the freight that Argentines charge in Uruguay, so that instead of taking the dollars from our country and transforming them into blue, they receive it in the Argentine banking system at the official exchange rate. If not, we are at a clear disadvantage,” said Martínez.
For the member of CATIDU, the proposed measures “do not generate any inconvenience to the Government of a political nature with the Argentine side”, and they considered, on the contrary, that the government of the neighboring country “will be grateful that the banks of their country receive the dollars instead of exchanging them at the blue dollar price in some cave”.
