The decision of the Government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, to cancel the legal status of the Livestock Exhibition of the Central American Isthmus (Expica), and nine other civil society organizations, executed by the official steamroller in the National Assembly, generated “great concern ” among the regional livestock sector.
This Monday, the Assembly met to carry out one more order from Ortega, announced last weekbringing to 1,080 the number of NGOs canceled in Nicaragua from 2018 to date.
Expica is a regional organization based in Nicaragua, whose annual fair was the mecca of the Central American livestock sector, attended not only by exhibitors from the isthmus, but also by businessmen from Mexico and the United States, to Colombia and Brazil.
Erick Montero, technical secretary of the Central American Federation of the Dairy Sector, (Fecalac), considered of “great concern the closure of Expica Nicaragua, which has been characterized as the showcase to promote the genetic improvement of regional livestock, and an important training point.”
Luis Diego Obando, executive director of the Costa Rican Livestock Corporation (Corfoga), said that the closure would be “a setback for the entire livestock sector in Central America,” given that “Expica has already forged a name, a career, a good reputation”, to the point that “there are breeders who are waiting for that event, which is already ‘the event’”.
The fair was ready to start this Thursday, July 21, with a duration of ten days. The closure occurred so unexpectedly that some did not have time to cancel their trip, as happened to a Costa Rican exhibitor who had 38 highly genetic animals, who was allowed to cross the border with all his animals, and then return them upon arrival in Rivas. .
A source from the Nicaraguan livestock sector said he had no idea of the official motivation for closing Expica, while a manager of a livestock organization limited himself to assuming that it was “for political reasons, and because of the exemptions.”
Companies remove their exhibitors
Since the early 1990s, during the government of President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, value added tax (VAT) exemption was authorized for sales made at the annual fair, which gave a great boost to activity, which became a large trade showroom for many types of products.
This includes appliances, motorcycles, appliances, banking services, food, clothing, leather products and even cars, as well as specific supplies for the livestock sector, including veterinary medicine, specialized foods, machinery, training in good practices, animal health, etc. .
When the decision was known, all the companies (restaurants, banks, commercial houses) that had rented a module to participate in the fair (the most expensive ones cost 5,000 dollars), took the logos, exhibitors, furniture and decorations that they had put on display. its modules. “They took everything that belonged to them,” he told CONFIDENTIAL a professional who provides services to the livestock sector.
“The commercial houses rushed to dismantle the improvements they had made to their stands, and to recover their merchandise before they were confiscated,” said a professional who worked for the fair for several years.
The advantages of buying at Expica were so great that “foreign farmers took the opportunity to buy products at the fair and take them back to their farms, because it was cheaper than buying them in their countries,” shared the professional.
The event had grown so much that the number of temporary jobs that were paralyzed is estimated at 5,000, ranging from kitchen helpers, to bank branch managers, through waiters, car and motorcycle salesmen, cooks, executives who earn sales commissions, guards, etc., of 180 large companies and 60 MSMEs.
This year, Expica was supporting more than 25 entrepreneurs to exhibit their products for the first time, including a seller of donuts from Somote, who had invested 500 dollars, which for her represents an amount too high to throw it away. loss.
Big sales fair canceled
Canceling the legal status of the Livestock Exhibition of the Central American Isthmus will affect many more people than the 5,000 who were going to work on it during its ten days, if one considers that some 80,000 people were expected, and that even the Association Nicaraguan Motor Vehicle Distributors (Andiva) was going to hold its own fair within the fair.
“Hundreds of motorcycles were expected to be sold at the fair, for which Andiva had made special orders, and some of its associates had prepared discounts of up to 10 percent,” said the professional quoted above.
“Most of those 80,000 people are ‘general public’, but we must not forget that many of the visitors are people with high purchasing power. Canceling the fair also affects people related to the Sandinista Front —from deputies to producers— who are ranchers,” he added.
The tourism sector is among the ‘victims’, because the exhibitors and ranchers in the region already had their hotel reservations, and they are businessmen who travel by plane, eat in luxury restaurants, take advantage of their trip to get to know any of the destinations tourist attractions in the country, and they buy what they like.
These ranchers had already paid the permit for the specimens that will no longer arrive at the fair, and now they are making arrangements to take them back to their countries. With this cancellation, the exhibitors sent by the sponsoring companies will not arrive either to talk about the brands they represented, which includes veterinarians, speakers, etc.
The executive of a company that exports products for animal use to Nicaragua, referred to CONFIDENTIAL that one of his clients who was preparing to participate in the fair, lost a good part of the investment he had made: from the advance payments of each module, to the additional amount he invested in increasing his inventories for the fair.
“We as exporters made the sale to the client, who asked for more product with an eye on what the fair could be. He paid us in cash, and now he’s stuffed with merchandise that he won’t be able to sell as fast as he had thought. It also affects us, since we will have to wait about three months for another order to be placed, when we had already planned to send more product in the month of August,” he said.
