Given the shortage of dollars and a currency gap of almost 100% that encourages all types of business, the Government focuses on another leg of the “import festival”: services. Customs, headed by Guillermo Michel, is investigating a group of companies for about freight drafts, and on one of them they evaluate that it can no longer operate in the port. In addition, they will criminally denounce a group of firms for accessing the official dollar with “Twin apes.”
For its part, the Ministry of Domestic and Foreign Trade began to ask for services import projections to companies for the first time for all of 2023. It is something that was already requested every year in the case of goods, and now services have been added. In any case, the Government, in meetings with business chambers, He already told them that they will not accept the applicationsbecause there is a request for projections to import for more than 100%.
Freight magnifying glass
Customs prepared an official report pointing to the “freight business” to overdraw dollars abroad. What they detected is that, as it happened around the world, the freight price jumped from 2020, as a result of the pandemic, the lack of containers and fluctuations in oil. But from the end of 2022, prices began to drop. On the contrary, In Argentina, freight payments continued to increase, with a similar number of containers operated.
“In our country, the curve at the end of 2022 has not decreased, and it continues with a growth that, at least at a comparative level, would not find an international explanation,” said the report. For this reason, Customs focused on the main maritime , the containers operated and the money transfer abroad.
At work, they mention a specific company: Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A. There is no type of complaint in progress, but official sources anticipated that the company will be summoned by the Ministry of Transportation. “There are inconsistencies in currency transfer”, they assured. “The volume of operated containers remained homogeneous in the last three years, but the amount of dollars sent abroad for Freight Services increased substantially,” he added.
In the last three years, the number of containers operated fell by the company, from 105,017 to 103,893. However, the transfer of dollars abroad grew exponentially: in 2020, there were US$130 million, in 2021 US$366 million and in 2022 US$684 million, an increase of 87%.
The Ministry of Transport will assess the authorization of the company’s maritime line to operate in Argentine ports. In addition, they could include freight within import control, in the Sirase system.
The Geneva-based company is the world’s leading shipping company in terms of container ship cargo capacity, and operates in most of the world’s ports. The official hypothesis is that “it has fewer controls that allow society to plan harmful transfers abroad, taking advantage of the exchange rate gap.”
In any case, outside of this report, Customs has other companies under its sight, also in terms of freight. “The previous case is very absurd, but there are several companies investigated in a special department of Customs,” said an official source.
In general, the mechanism for accessing the official dollar is to leave the freight expense in invoices in duplicate, to an Argentine company and a foreign one, and the part that is not paid as freight goes to a company of the same group in the abroad.
twin apes
With an official dollar just over $200, and financial ones almost double, the inventiveness is enormous. Another case being investigated by Customs is that of the “Simis twins”. With the new SIRA system, there is a single current account for foreign trade, which can be monitored at the same time by the company, the bank, the AFIP, Customs and the Secretary of Commerce. However, this did not exist in the previous SIMI system, which was in force until last October. Therefore, there were cases in which banks authorized currency transfers with “simis trout” or “twins”, since there was no “matching” of the financial system against the AFIP database.
In the coming weeks, a criminal complaint involving 5 companies, and another 90 are under investigation. Only one company made transfers for US$5 million through this mechanism.
Given the shortage of foreign currency and the negotiations, the Government will now ask companies for projections of imports of services for all of 2023, by uploading an excel file on the AFIP site. “There is no rule that makes it mandatory, but it will be important to comply with this process,” said a Customs broker.
In the case of the projections of imports of goods that the companies completed at the beginning of the year, The Government has already begun to notify in some chambers that they will not be met, due to the sharp increases in the projections. In the case of the food companies grouped in Copal, for this year they requested u$s 284 million, 44% more than the previous year. “GDP is expected to grow by 2%, and I doubt that all companies will make new factories that justifies this, so these deviations will be corrected,” an official source commented.
In a meeting at the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA), the Ministry of Commerce brought the data. The UIA companies requested dollars for 2023 for US$ 7,697 million, 21% more than in 2022. But broken down by category, food demanded 118% more foreign currency, or energy 85% more.
Source: Ambito
