The institute and the union pointed to the negative effect that the purchase of Marfrig would have on the local logic of the main Uruguayan export product.
He National Meat Institute (INAC) expressed concern at the news that the Brazilian company Minerva will go on to have seven plants in the country —after the purchase of three of the four refrigerators that its competitor, Marfrig, It has in Uruguay- and almost half of the market for the refrigeration industry, and pointed it out as “bad news” for the sector.
INAC President, Conrad Ferber, added to the questions about the merger of the two Brazilian companies that, from the starting point, already jointly controlled 51% of the Uruguayan bovine slaughter market. The problem is that, now, with the operation carried out by Minerva Foods, it will have, by itself, almost 45% of the market. For Ferber, that announcement turns on red lights that must be addressed by the Commission for the Promotion and Defense of Competition of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) —the same one that gave the go-ahead to the signature of Brazil in the recent purchase of the refrigerator Breeders and Packers Uruguay (BPU).
According to the chief, the commission must prevent the merger that would leave in the hands of Minerva 43% of the domain of the country’s refrigerated market, while the transaction would put at risk the “sound functioning” of the main export product of Uruguay.
“We see it as bad news. We understand that at this time we were already coming from an important acquisition, which was the BPU refrigerator in Peach, that at the time we understood that it was not convenient, that the concentration in few hands of the main refrigeration industries in our country was bad news,” Ferber said at a press conference, adding: “We understand that the law that regulates this gave the Protection Commission tools to avoid this.”
“We would be delivering such an important part of our independence of slaughter that we do not see it favorably, and we hope that the commission will act accordingly”, added the president of INAC.
The Rural Association, also against
Like the INAC —and adding to expressions of concern from workers and senators such as sebastian da silva and Adrian Peña, the Rural Association of Uruguay (ARU) He also questioned Minerva’s actions and conveyed his concern about market concentration to the president. Luis Lacalle Pou.
According to the president of the rural union, Patricio Cortabarria, the merger of the two Brazilian companies in the local operation may change the logic of livestock production in the country.
“We urgently asked the president for an audience and he received us. The problem we see is that there is a sale of some refrigeration plants, which in the case Uruguay It implies that a company buys three refrigerators from another company, reaching seven plants and concentrating more than 44% of the work. That, added to the other companies that are operating in the framework, with four companies would be talking about more than 70% of the work. We understand that this is not good for the market, because it is not good to have a company have so much power over the rest,” Cortabarría said at a press conference.
“We understand that we are more than 40,000 producers that we would have to negotiate with four companies to talk about 70% of the work. We see it as something very dangerous. It is a milestone that if it is achieved, it can change livestock in a difficult way, ”he added.
Source: Ambito
