The Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, assured this Monday that the national government will promote that the Comprehensive Import Monitoring System (SIMI) be “simple and transparent” for intermediate goods required by SMEs to sustain and increase their activity, and stressed that “the priority” is that “every available dollar goes to production.”
This was stated by the head of the Palacio de Hacienda after meeting with the directors of the Argentine Confederation of Medium-sized Enterprises (CAME) in the Buenos Aires party of Lomas de Zamora.
Massa stated on his Twitter account that “ensuring that every available dollar goes to production is a priority”for which he anticipated that he will promote “that the Comprehensive Import Monitoring System (SIMI) be simple and transparent, with priority approval for intermediate goods that SMEs need to continue growing.”
“This SIMI is going to give predictability to small and medium-sized companies in our country, since It will have a payment date at the same time of its approval. Thus, companies will be able to plan their production processes with order and certainty,” the minister concluded.
Ensuring that every available dollar goes into production is a priority. That is why we are going to promote that the Comprehensive Import Monitoring System (SIMI) be simple and transparent, with priority approval for intermediate goods that SMEs need to continue growing. pic.twitter.com/7J3Zo8gNb2
– Sergio Massa (@SergioMassa) September 26, 2022
Massa participated in the meeting together with the Secretary of Commerce, Matías Tombolini, the Secretary of Industry and Productive Development, José Ignacio de Mendiguren, the Chief of Staff of the Province of Buenos Aires, Martín Insaurralde, and the President of the Buenos Aires Chamber of Deputies, Federico Otermin.
In this context, the businessmen led by the head of the CAME, Alfredo González, expressed that in order to continue the reactivation process, “measures must be implemented so that the availability of foreign currency is directed to the productive sector.”
According to business sources who participated in the meeting, The Minister of Economy assured that with a new “simple and transparent” SIMI scheme, and priority approval for intermediate goods that SMEs need, “companies will be able to plan their production processes with order and certainty.”
At the meeting it was anticipated that Soon, 21,000 CUITs of importers of goods of less than 2 million dollars could be released.
The leaders requested differential measures to #SMEs:
✔️ subsidized rates for productive credits,
✔️ 50% interest rate reduction for tax debts
✔️ solve delays in the import SIMI system
✔️segmentation of rates and fuels pic.twitter.com/Tg2KTIMC7R— CAME (@redcame) September 26, 2022
Massa had already addressed the issue of availability of foreign exchange for imports linked to production last week when he met with the leadership of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA) headed by its president Daniel Funes de Rioja.
On the occasion, the businessmen raised with the minister the need to articulate the actions of the Ministry of Commerce and the Central Bank that allow generating certainty regarding the acquisition of imported inputs for production.
At that meeting, which was held at the headquarters of the industrial entity, Massa warned that “we must work together, but that implies everyone’s responsibility” by stating that “there cannot be situations that stop the production of companies or abuses of those entrepreneurs who receive benefits from the State”.
Also, a few days ago, the General Business Confederation (Cgera) addressed the issue with officials from the economic team in a meeting in which they asked to ensure the availability of foreign currency to meet the need to import inputs for production and, at the opportunity, the industrial leaders They proposed that industrial SMEs be granted the same benefits for externalizing foreign assets that construction currently has.
Regarding this Monday’s meeting, the head of the CAMEAlfredo González, expressed that “In this context of reactivation, it is necessary to implement measures so that the availability of foreign currency is directed to the productive sector.”
In that sense, he deepened: “This situation means that the Government must address this issue quickly. In this context of scarcity of dollars and short sheets, the productive sector must be privileged, and that requires an additional government and private effort.”
CAME orders
In turn, among the requests that small and medium-sized companies made to the economic team, subsidized rates for productive loans stood out.reduction of 50% of the current compensatory and punitive interest rate for debts taxes, and the difficulties in the segmentation of rates together with the scarcity and very high prices of fuels in the provinces of Norte Grande.
The directors of CAME expressed after the meeting and through a statement that “regarding this last point, the minister Massa highlighted that they are working on a rate segmentation specific to regional economies and the SME industry”.
In the same way, they indicated that with regard to subsidized rates for credits for small and medium-sized companies, “the minister stated that together with the secretary De Mendiguren are working on a loan scheme with a rate subsidy of 25%.
By Mendigurenin the last hours, affirmed that Argentina “so far this year it has a record of imports for more than 57,000 million dollars”and that the Government is working on “concrete measures to come out with very strong exports by giving fiscal relief to sectors that generate dollars in addition to what they have been generating.”
In this sense, the official indicated that the national government is busy “getting the dollars that the country needs to continue growing with concrete measures that give fiscal relief to sectors that generate additional dollars to those they had been generating”, such as the automotive industry, the oil sector and the agri-food chain, among others.
In this context, he explained that from the national government, “a case for abuse of injunctions” was initiated “before the federal justice system” that authorized 2,600 million dollars of imports.
“This brutal record of imports and of these precautionary ones, 75% came from finished goods,” said the official, adding that with Minister Massa “they have been working hard to find out what is real about it, how much they ate as the business of the precautionary ones, or imports that were not necessary to produce”.
