Before the end of the month, the national government will extend for another year the suspension of the collection of withholdings on the export of dairy products, confirmed the National Director of the area, Sebastián Alconada, while attending the 4th International Dairy Seminar that was held. celebrated at the Rafaela Rural Society.
The official highlighted this publicly from the stand, where he participated in a debate on the formalization of the Argentine dairy market together with the Director of the Santa Fe Dairy, Carlos De Lorenzi, and union leaders such as Alfredo Trionfini, Carsfe dairy coordinator and his counterpart in CRA, Norberto Ferrari.
The decision to extend the tax exemption was announced by the Ministry of Economy at the beginning of May. Then, Alconada said, it was communicated to the provinces during the last meeting of the Federal Agricultural Council (CFA), held in Córdoba at the end of the same month. There “it was stated – and it will be implemented with a next decree – that the suspension of export duties is extended for 12 more months,” he said from the stage. Added to the first period of 6 months, established at the end of the year by a presidential decree, plus the previous 2 months that the previous administration had decreed, 20 months will be accumulated without payment of DEX. “I think it is very good news; it gives predictability, it made a very considerable improvement in the price”he stated.
“When we argued why it was important to maintain zero rights, we were able to demonstrate it with numbers and facts; and the facts are nothing more than showing what you – each one of you – did in your fields; what the industry did, adding value of their products; what the exporters did: they reached the rest of the world with their products generating value and we only had to show numbers and show that the country works this way; that’s why we were able to achieve 12 more months,” explained Alconada; to the audience that listened to him in the Industrial Pavilion of rural Rafaelina.
Immediately afterwards, he admitted: “obviously the ideal is to go from suspension to definitive elimination.” The clarification was not coincidental, given that in April the Santa Fe Dairy Roundtable (made up of the productive chain and the local government) had proposed the repeal of the tax, as an “insurance” against its possible reimplantation.
In dialogue with El Litoral, Alconada maintained that the repeal “has to do with a broader package, where not only the dairy industry but also other regional activities enter”; and that to implement it it is necessary to trace the fiscal impact of the measure. “When a drastic decision is made as general as the definitive elimination, you have to analyze the fiscal cost of the entire measure,” something that he considered more difficult to implement than the extension of the existing measure.
According to Alconada, the measure generated positive effects: “the producer price reacted, there was a clear recovery.” For this and other reasons, he considered that “the suspension system is giving good results.” And that, based on these effects, future elimination could be facilitated. “What we have to do is a great effort to demonstrate that in the 18 months, plus the 2 of the previous government, things went well; and it generated an improvement in the sector and with better income for the country and that will allow it to not even be “It is necessary to discuss that if you eliminate them definitively you are not affecting public accounts.”
Finally, the official confirmed that the extension will come with a new decree that will replace No. 9. “It is an open file, because the decree expires at the end of the month, the administrative process has begun and it should be released before June 30.”
