When Governor Martín Llaryora advances in negotiations with the Nation for the transfer of public works, which will be transferred without resources, the data was known that between January and May the real direct investment of the National State in the provinces and CABA, in the first Five months of the year it was $90,918 million in its paid stage, 84.4% less in real terms in the year-on-year comparison. Construction – which represents 67% of real direct investment – shows a real year-on-year drop of 86.1%. In Córdoba it was 89.6%, above the national average; In public works the contraction was 93.2% real.
In recent weeks, with Guillermo Francos in charge of the Chief of Staff, the transfer to the governors of basically works on national routes, health centers, water and sanitation works began to be accelerated. Agreements have already been signed with Chaco, Jujuy, Entre Ríos, Tucumán, Mendoza, Chubut and Neuquén, and there is progress with Córdoba, Catamarca and Santa Fe. In the case of the province of Buenos Aires, Francos received Gabriel Katopodis two weeks ago, today Minister of Infrastructure of Buenos Aires, who requested the transfer of some 1,000 national works to the management of Governor Axel Kiciloff.
According to data from Politikon Chaco, the decline in real direct investment began in September 2023 (-7.6% at that time), had a rebound in October (+7.1%) but fell again in November and maintained that result until last month, with the aggravating factor that between December 2023 and May 2024 the declines were very deep: the peak of the fall is observed in January 2024 with -95.3% and except for February (-74.1% ) in the rest of the months of the year the decline was greater than -80% real year-on-year.
Regarding Construction specifically, a similar trend is observed: in September the decline begins, maintaining that result until May. In this case, the peak decline is observed in March 2024 with -93% real year-on-year.
Thus, the accumulated of the first five months of the year shows a paid execution of Constructions for $63,108 million with a year-on-year drop, in real terms, of – 86.1%, while the paid execution of the total Real Direct Investment was by $90,918 million and a real decrease of -84.4% year-on-year.
From Politikon they clarify that although this indicator allows us to have a valid approximation of the geographical distribution of national public investment, it is, at the same time, imperfect. In the case of CABA, certain expenses are frequently charged for being the headquarters of contracting companies, but which are not carried out in said territory; It also happens that since it is the headquarters of the federal government, there are expenditures linked to its own investment that increase the final amount, without necessarily being development projects to be carried out in the district.
Another point to clarify has to do with the existence of two categories outside the 24 subnational jurisdictions: Interprovincial (if the expense is associated with two or more jurisdictions but not all, such as the construction of a border bridge between two provinces); and the National (if the expense is associated with all jurisdictions as may be the case in 2024 for the construction of weather radars). Thus these two categories are excluded from the analysis.
In this period, Buenos Aires, CABA, Entre Ríos, Río Negro and Córdoba account for 62.7% of the total executed, but with clear dominance of the first two, which account for 45.3%. At the other extreme, the provinces of Formosa, Chubut and La Rioja are those that show the lowest levels of participation in the execution of real direct investment (0.3%, 0.2% and 0.2% of the total, respectively ).
In terms of year-on-year performance, although there are gaps in results by district, the outlook is mostly one of sharp decline. As previously mentioned, the total of the national Real Direct Investment showed a real decrease of 84.4% and there were eleven districts that fell above that level, another eleven did so to a lesser extent and there were two that showed increases.
First of all, the provinces with real expansion stand out: these were Jujuy (+52.9%) and Tierra del Fuego (41.6%). In both cases, the increase is largely based on a very low comparative base: they had been those that presented the lowest levels of investment, measured in pesos, in the January-May 2023 period.
In turn, among the eleven districts that presented drops lower than the national level there are strong deviations: the slightest decrease was in Río Negro with -5.3% but immediately followed by Santiago del Estero with a drop of -55.2% . In that group there are three that stand out above the rest due to the volume of fall: Salta with -97.5%, Chubut with -98.8% and La Rioja with -99.0%.
Within the Real Direct Investment, the Construction section is the one that historically represents a majority volume, they represented 69.4% of the national real direct investment between January and May and although the districts where this rule complies with are the majority, they are presented strong deviations: in eleven provinces, they represent more than 95% while in four districts they concentrate a portion lower than the national average, with CABA exhibiting the lowest level (barely 15%).
In terms of participation of the total paid by Construction, it is observed that between Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos, Río Negro, Jujuy and CABA they concentrate 59.5% of the national total, although only the first two represent 42.4%. At the other extreme, San Luis, La Rioja and Chubut show the lowest levels of participation with 0.2% in each case.
In this case, Jujuy and Tierra del Fuego are once again the only two provinces with real increases (85.7% and 41.2%) with a strong impact of the low comparative base. Río Negro, for its part, is the province with the slightest decrease of the period (-8.8%) and La Rioja and Chubut, for their part, show the most relevant falls (-99.1% and -99.2 %, respectively).
