Pablo Ruival (PR)): We have a plan for 200 million dollars in the pulp mill (located in the town of Puerto Esperanza, located about 250 kilometers north of Posadas), this shows a huge commitment to the province of Misiones, but we want to continue investing and, in this sense, we are renewing the forestry machinery and a series of operations in our industrial facilities, we are renovating our water plant in Puerto Piray (a town located about 185 kilometers north of Posadas) that supplies a large part of this town
P: Is Misiones in a position to attract greater forestry investments?
PR: I have not the slightest doubt, the soil of Misiones is very rich, the human resource is fully trained, for which we have all the conditions in place for industrial forestry investments to arrive.
Q: The authorization of the port of Posadas is imminent. Did you analyze the possibility of taking the production through the Paraná River through the port of Posadas?
PR: Taking out all the production of course not, however, the operation of the port of Posadas is extremely important for us and hopefully it can start up soon.
P: What should transform, mainly the political sector to guarantee investments like those received by Brazil?
PR: Conditions must be set, such as reforming the Land Law, which is a stumbling block because when a forestry-industrial company plans to invest 2,000 million dollars in a pulp mill, it invests 1,500 million dollars in a plant that is attached to the ground and 500 million of dollars in land to keep the wood supply assured, that is why the Land Law does not allow us to continue growing in surface area (it establishes that foreign companies can only have 15% of rural lands. This percentage also applies to the territory of each province and, therefore, foreigners cannot own more than the aforementioned percentage of the territory of a province.Furthermore, foreigners of the same nationality; the limitations apply to natural persons as well as to companies and simple associations). access to the exchange market should be a very important signal, the fact of being able to cancel debts, pay dividends or have greater flexibility in the acquisition of investments, are issues that make the tax system should be reviewed, for example
Q: With the exports that Arauco makes, they are generators of dollars that must be settled at the official exchange rate in pesos and they need dollars for certain investments. How do you deal with the shortage of dollars and fuel?
PR: We deal like everyone else, we don’t have different conditions
Q: I insist on the issue of diesel…
PR: There is less supply of transport, the flow of trucks in the distribution of the products that Arauco produces is enormous, this situation generates two drawbacks; one has to do with the volume of transportation supply and the other is that when one has polynomials for clear, transparent price establishments that allow fluidity in contracting, suddenly there is a variable that is diesel whose value is not known, they are barriers that in Argentina we must get used to peeling them every day
P: And what about the foreign exchange market?
PR: Little by little we are having access to the foreign exchange market to be able to have imported inputs, we have been able to access the foreign exchange market in terms of investments, but we do not have the fluidity that we want
P: It is difficult to speak of exploitation in the face of a war between Russia and Ukraine, however I ask you, what benefits in terms of exports does the forestry-industrial sector have?
PR: We are taking advantage of exports because the prices of commodities in general are very sustained, the volume of exports that we have is the same because our factories work constantly with weak or good markets because we face difficult situations and enjoy the good times of the markets knowing how to prepare and that is what gives us the sustainability to maintain operations over time
Q: What can be part of the company’s investment plan in Brazil?
PR: I envy Brazil, but I believe that investments in this country commit us Argentines even more to generate the conditions of permanent attraction so that the next investments can be captured by us because Argentina in general and the Misiones region in particular have natural conditions unique for the development of the forestry industry. (Arauco will invest close to 3,000 million dollars to build a new plant in Mato Grosso do Sul in 2028. The new plant will generate 12,000 jobs during construction and 1,800 permanent jobs when it begins to operate. The project, which contemplates a potential investment of US $3 billion, would start its works in 2025, after the approval of the Environmental Licensing, the evaluation of the wood supply and the confirmation of the investment by the company’s board of directors is established.
Source: Ambito
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