The president of the Rural Association of Uruguay (ARU), Patricio Cortabarría, he complained to President Luis Lacalle Pou for him exchange delay, which he estimated to be around 15%, and maintained that the reason for this misalignment “continues to be the fiscal deficit”.
During his closing speech at the Expo Prado 2023, Cortabarría sent a direct message to the president and recalled the difficult moment that the sector endured due to the drought, with significant losses which they estimate at around 2,000 million dollars.
The ruralist leader insisted that “the reason for exchange delay, yesterday and today, it is still the fiscal deficit” and assured that the data of the Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU) They confirm that the current level is “the lowest level of the real exchange rate in the last 40 years, with a misalignment of 15% with respect to its fundamentals” and also echoed that “this gap will continue to widen.”
For barrier cutter, There was “a relaxation of fiscal policy” during the last year and he compared the situation with what happened during the pandemic, when “with a very important effort by the government in the first two years, the guidelines for reducing spending were exceeded.”
The leader valued “the tax reduction,” but questioned: “We continue spending more than what is collected.” In that sense, he specified that “today 22 billion dollars are spent, but 19 billion are collected, so 3 billion dollars are missing.”
For all this, he considered that “so that the exchange delay is not endemic, we must achieve a balance in the State accounts”, that is why he marked a path for the future: “We must spend less and generate reforms that allow increasing productivity”.
The million-dollar losses of the agricultural sector
Besides, Barrier cutter He referred to the complications brought about by the worst drought of the century in the agricultural sector, noting that it was “one of the most complex years of the last 20” due to a climate phenomenon that left “large losses, close to 2,000 million dollars.”
The rural leader regretted that the sector had “the worst summer harvest in history, with the lowest crop yields and in many cases with areas that were not even able to harvest,” considering that it was “a drought widespread that practically spared no one.
However, he valued the dialogue between the ARU and the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries (MGAP), with measures to “cope” with complications. “We emphasize that the vast majority of these measures are not exonerations, but are extensions of payments that allowed many producers to continue working without the pressure of expirations,” he highlighted. Barrier cutter.
And he hoped for a better harvest. “We have recovered water in our soil profiles, even with excess in some areas. This gives us hope of being able to consolidate a spring of good production for all areas,” he concluded.
Source: Ambito
