Finally, he stressed that, if the conditions do not change, it will be difficult for the president to be met. “Today the rates are well above inflation, and Although inflation fell compared to previous years, it is not a good symptom that the credit is so expensive”, Understands Roberto Fontenla’s son, owner of the company with 70 years of production in the country.
“We are all behind the very short term”
Along the same line, Román Guajardoholder of the Industrial Union Rosario Region (UNIRR), stated that talking about the 2026 budget It is distant For entrepreneurs. “Today we are all thinking about day to day and the juncture: how we do to Draw the market fallthe high rates we have and how to hold The delay in collection deadlines With the payment commitments to suppliers in a high rates system, “the businessman described and adds:” We are not thinking of a medium -term horizon, we are all behind the very short Term, ”he said.
The industrial leader detailed a picture of weakness in the payment chain: “What we see is a scenario where Profitables They are very low, the financial costs are very high and it is also true that The flow in the payment chain has delay. Clients who were very good payers now are good, customers who They were regular now they are bad And those who were bad, the truth that is being complex. It is the same thing that is seen in the increase in credit card delinquency and in the growth of returned checks, ”Guajardo warned.
The same alert signal gave the president of Banco Macro and the River Plate Athletic Club, Jorge Britopointing last week in the podcast the factory that, with respect to the number of rejected checks, does not yet record an alarming number, but it did notice that between June and July the cases were doubledand from July to August they increased considerably again.
SMEs in a state of waiting and prognosis of social tension
It was more blunt Mauro González, President of the General SME Confederationwho assured that the perspectives for the sector are “null“He stressed that with credit rates around 60%”Any productive project is unfeasible”And he questioned that the government“ lowers taxes for goods per door to door, While investments stop until they see the electoral results”
The leader also warned of the political and social dimension: “We are seeing the growth of unemployment, but also of precariousness. If there is no change in economic policies, one birds a social crisis at the end of the year if it is not reversed. The fabric in the neighborhoods is very tense. ”
The debate for the trade balance
To the business concerns, a new front was added with the official foreign trade projections included in the budget. A box included in the official document shows that, after the surplus of US $ 16,654 million in 2024, The commercial balance will become negative from 2025 onwardswith a red of US $ 2,447 million that year and increasing deficits until 2028.
In front of those figures, the National Entrepreneurs Association He launched a warning on social networks: “The government of President @jmilei projects from here to 2028 every year negative commercial balance with increasing imports. They are preparing the economy to destroy 25 thousand SMEs per year. It is a direct aggression. End,” the entity shared.
The Paraguayan model and the maquila regime
In parallel, Milei put Paraguay again in his exhibition against the National Congress of that country. During the event, the president stressed: “Thanks to the maquila regime, Paraguay has managed to make the most of its local industryincreasing exports and generating genuine jobs “and that the neighboring country” managed to dominate, a long time ago, the scourge of inflation. “
But not everyone shares that diagnosis. Guido Agostinellieconomist and author of libertarian fallacies, who visited Paraguay to closely study his economy, questioned the idealization of the model: “Paraguay is an economy that is making efforts decades for attracting direct foreign investment. For that it generated free zones and all kinds of instruments, But the investment is around 1% of GDPvery small. The tax pressure is in less than half than Argentina, and yet they fail to attract large capitals. There is no scientific evidence that lowering taxes attract quality investment. What determines the attraction is the investment in infrastructure and technology made by the State”
The economist warned that the country governed by Santiago Peña is decimated in infrastructure, without a railway network and with great deficiencies in health and education. “That makes it very difficult to invest there. Labor informality levels are 70%, well above Argentina. Therefore, lowering taxes you will not achieve greater formality, ”Agostinelli concluded after his visit.
For the economist, Paraguay “is clearly a failed case.” However, it grows with low inflation levels. That is why he maintains that Milei points to the same model: “Growth with low inflation, but with sectors excluded from society.”
Signals of productive weakness
Recently Indec confirmed the stagnation of economic activity, since the internal gross product (GDP) backed 0.1% in the second quarter compared to the previous three months. The data puts an end to a series of three consecutive quarters with rises of 3.6%, 2.2%and 0.9%.
In turn, the last of industrial activity reinforce the sensation of fragility. According to the latest survey of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA)he 36.3% of companies reduced its production in the second quarter of the year in front of the 21.8% that recorded increases. In sales, the 43.5% reported casualties and only the 18.6% Avings. In exports, the 30.5% of the signatures reported falls against a 16.6% that showed increases.
In parallel, a report by the vector consultant prepared from data from the Superintendence of Labor Risks, showed the loss of productive units with workers registered under different periods: 23,632 during the 48 months of Mauricio Macri (-492 per month), 15,398 during the 10 months of the spo in pandemic (-1,540 per month), and 16,322 in the first 19 months of Milei (-859 per month).
In this way, while the president insists that the Budget 2026 will be the basis for a new private investment cycle and puts the Paraguayan model as a mirrorthe perception in Argentine factories and SMEs shows another diagnosis: closer to the daily urgency than of the medium -term horizon, with still pending structural reforms, a foreign trade projected in deficit, fall of productive units and an eye on October, where there is expected to be news in the economic front.
Source: Ambito
