Everyone in the economic team agrees: the external restriction is today the main obstacle to sustaining growth. The difficulty that the country had in the last decade to increase the income of foreign currency through exports places too low a ceiling on the possibility of importing inputs and goods that are needed to increase the level of activity year after year.
In each relevant international tour, both the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Economy include business rounds with local officials or companies. It is clear that it has become a central objective of economic policy. In this search for investment and to increase trade, there are two sectors that appear recurrently: energy and mining.
Regarding the latter, due to its size and its growing demand for minerals used in electric vehicle batteries, China appears as a relevant potential buyer. According to a survey by the Ministry of Mining that Ámbito was able to access, from January 2020 to December 2022, announcements of investment in capital for mining by China reached US$2.9 billion. Of the nine projects promoted by the Asian country in the country, six correspond to lithium. In fact, more than 42% of Argentine lithium exports in 2021 had China as their final destination.
The latest announcement by Ambassador Vaca Narvaja also goes in this direction. The private company Tsingshan will double the investment it had planned in the Centenario Ratones project located in Salta. As confirmed by sources familiar with the negotiations to Ámbito, disbursements will now amount to u$s 770 million. The decision to increase the capital invested in the project aims to raise production forecasts from 24,000 tons per year to almost 50,000 tons by 2024.
According to official estimates, only the volume of exports from this project would imply income for Argentina of US$4,000 million per year. Vaca Narvaja maintained that this will only be the starting point for a much more important growth of the sector in the country: “Argentina shares the Andes Mountains with Chile, so it can be assumed that both countries have similar mining resources. However, Chile currently exports 20 times more minerals than Argentina. It is a concrete guideline of the growth potential that mining has in the country”, assured the diplomat.
During 2022, exports from the mining complex grew by 30% year-on-year. Regarding lithium, the Foreign Ministry expects that this year the historical record will be reached. In the portfolio that Santiago Cafiero leads, they assure that it will also be one of the factors that will explain a new growth in foreign sales next year.
Source: Ambito
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