The governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof, toured the port of Mar del Plata this Friday afternoon, where he highlighted the growth of the naval industry, works and the offshore oil company that will be located 300 kilometers from the Buenos Aires coast.
The first provincial president was accompanied by the lieutenant governor Verónica Magario, and the head of the Anses, Fernanda Raverta.
They also participated in President of the Mar del Plata Regional Port Consortium, Gabriel Felizia, the Minister of Production, Science and Technological Innovation, Augusto Costa, and the Minister of Government Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez.
During a trip aboard a ship through the Mar del Plata terminal, Kicillof told the press that “the port shows the profile of this productive Mar del Plata that we are so interested in promoting.”
“We are seeing a thriving naval industry and from our perspective the province of Buenos Aires has to be a power in its naval industry and that is a source of pride for the fishing fleet in general,” he said.
The provincial president said that “Mar del Plata needs to diversify and for that the port and the industry are central, which gives the province of Buenos Aires that boost that it lacked.”
Then he assured that the dredging of the port “will cause more cruise ships to arrive in Mar del Plata, where tourist purposes are very important and with the projects we have, the port’s capacity will be doubled and that gives a future perspective with work, production all year round and with a better quality of life”.
Regarding the port and the oil issue, he maintained that “It has already been clarified that the environmental risk on the explorations 300 kilometers from the Buenos Aires coast, is not only very low but even improbable that there is a problem of spills because the tides go the other way” .
“There are already very precise technical studies and interventions from the Ministry of the Environment in which everything is done with all precautions and in the way that the technological frontier is in environmental care issues,” he asserted and remarked: “I am also very frustrated because the campaign that was carried out against generating fear”.
On this last point, he elaborated: “The project took more than a year and a half because of those who tried to profit politically from this and it is unfortunate, because today we would already have the drilling done to find out whether or not there is oil in our sea ”.
Regarding the support of the mayors for his re-election as governor, Kicillof considered that “it is premature” and remarked: “Together with Verónica (Magario) we have to continue managing because we do not think of interrupting the management to start campaigning or discussing candidacies ”.
During his visit to Mar del Plata, the governor also presented the Digitalization and Technological Modernization program that aims for the Buenos Aires public ports to acquire technological equipment with the latest generation software development.
The investment is made with financing from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for a total of 560 million pesos and, according to government data, it will make logistics more efficient, streamline procedures and reduce costs, optimize the functions of control agencies , improve security and cargo tracking.
Port activity is essential to enhance the productive and industrial capacity and underpin the integration of our Province.
After 4 years of abandonment and lack of investment, we propose a look towards the future to recover its central and strategic role. pic.twitter.com/nN25Iy86PH
— Axel Kicillof (@Kicillofok) January 13, 2023
For his part, Raverta stated that “the port is an engine that turns on every day in Mar del Plata and that is seen when there is a National and Provincial state that bets on work every day. The sewer works in this port as the lights for the ships to enter at night, is to think with common sense knowing what we want for the city”.
“The port of the city is in the heart of the people of Mar del Plata since it is thought of as our place in the world to think that Mar del Plata can stand up”emphasized the head of the Anses.
Subsequently, Costa asserted regarding the 2023 summer season, it comes from “a record December with a lot of tourist influx, which moves the economy and the first weeks of January ratified these trends. Today walking through the streets of Mar del Plata, Villa Gesell, the party of La Costa and the mountains consolidate the province as a summer destination in Argentina and it is something very important for economic revivals.
Regarding the ReCreo program, the minister pointed out that “the five inns that we have had already received 300,000 people until last Sunday and last season we had a total of 450,000 all season.”
“This speaks of a policy that has been adopted as their own by vacationers with free proposals for the whole family,” Costa concluded.
On the other hand, the Secretary of Commerce of the Nation, Matías Tombolini, was another of the officials present at the time of presenting the Digitalization and Technological Modernization program for the Buenos Aires ports; In his speech, he linked the improvements in the monitoring of port activity with the need to manage foreign trade and domestic trade in a coordinated manner.
“In order for the price programs, the fiscal order and the accumulation of reserves to be carried out, it is necessary to manage both foreign and domestic trade at the same time,” said Tombolini.
The Secretary of Commerce also warned that “the time of the import festival is over in Argentina” and said that the incorporation of technology in the Buenos Aires ports will mean that “the time of the living will end and that of those who are truly committed to the country”.
