The Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, announced that in 2023 the Government will not charge the right to incremental automobile exports, from sales that exceed 322,000 units sold abroad during the past year.
“Any incremental export will not pay export duties. It is a way of rewarding investment, Argentine work, and effort”Massa said during a meeting with representatives of automotive companies, auto parts, dealers and union leaders.
The minister also highlighted that the auto parts and automobile production sector generated “almost 50,000 more jobs than in 2021” to reach 600,000 jobs throughout the industry, a number that he expects “to continue to grow in 2023.”
“We finished a wonderful year -2022- but the one that begins must be much better,” said the head of the Palacio de Hacienda.
Massa highlighted that 536,000 units were manufactured last year, including cars and utility vehicles, “which marked an improvement of 23.5% compared to 2021, and the highest production in the last eight years” and this increase occurred “despite of those who said there were problems, that tires were missing”.
But also, “exports totaled 322,286 vehicles, with an increase of 24.3%”, which means Argentine work abroad.
“We envision for 2023 a minimum production scenario of 620,000 vehicles,” said Massa, compared to the 536,000 cars in 2022, leading a presentation with the Secretary of Industry and Productive Development, José Ignacio de Mendiguren, and authorities from the Association of Automotive Factories (Adefa) and industry unions.
Massa estimated that “370,000 of those cars produced in Argentina will go abroad” and in this framework “all the incremental exports (compared to 2022) will not pay export duties, because we want to reward the investment, work and effort” of the sector as a whole.
The minister stressed that “we already have a vehicle that is almost 50% domestically produced and we seek to get that percentage to other” automobiles.
He stressed that the automotive sector “is an example of the challenge of growing and our responsibility as a government is to promote it so that it grows.”
In the twelve months of last year, 322,286 vehicles were exported, with an increase of 24.3% compared to the same period in 2021, when 259,287 units were sold abroad.
Regarding the destinations of local production, throughout the 12 months of 2022 some 202,406 units (62.8% of total shipments) were destined for the Brazilian market, which confirms the importance of the neighboring country, although last year it was well below the historical 85% it came to represent.
Next in importance are the markets of Central America, with 32,462 vehicles (10.1%); Colombia, with 20,180 (6.3%); Chile, with 20,140 (6.2%); Peru, with 17,617 (5.5%); and Mexico, with 7,889 (2.4%).
