Within a few days the report of the Commission for the Promotion and Defense of Competition (Coprodec) of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) and opinions regarding the Minerva-Marfrig purchase generate disputes within the precandidates to president.
The countdown to the end of the deadline for Coprodec to issue a ruling on the legality of the Minerva-Marfrig operation It is already imminent and, in any case, the organization must appeal to extend the time limit to make a decision for another 60 days. In that sense, the leader of the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries (MGAP), Fernando Mattosexpressed that he hopes that the competition defense entity can make a quick resolution.
This case generated controversy within politics, causing even the president of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou and two pre-candidates for president, the representative of the Broad Front, Yamandú Orsi and that of Colorado Party, Gabriel Gurméndez Give your opinions on the matter.
What did the candidates say?
The presidential candidate, Yamandu Orsi, invited the president, Luis Lacalle Pouto review reports on the sale of Minerva.
“The government has the opportunity to consult the contributions of all sectors linked to the agro. I wish he had done it with the port, but he didn’t,” Orsi said this Friday at a press conference.
The departmental head alluded to the extension of the contract for the concession of the port to the company Katoen Natie and pointed out that the purchase of Minerva represents a risk and that it is the president’s duty to decide politically based on technical reports.
“A country is sovereign and a government has to manage the interests of the country. If there is a commission that prepares reports where I don’t think it says black or white, but rather it puts nuances. It is obvious that this presents risk, I think the president and the government They have all the powers to act accordingly,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, the presidential candidate for Colorado Party, Gurméndez, published his opinion on the matter on his social networks. “The meat chain is the fundamental engine of national economy. Today, the government is considering a commercial purchase and sale that, if successful, would concentrate in a single operator the capacity to task of more than half of the market and therefore a dominant position to be able to set prices and distort free competition,” he explained.
In that sense, he took a position on the matter. “As a pre-candidate for the presidency I want to express clearly that we consider highly inconvenient said eventuality, and that we understand that the national government must prevent the completion of the MINERVA-MARFRIG operation,” Gurméndez remarked.
The position of Luis Lacalle Pou
If the operation is approved, 45% of the local work will remain in the hands of a foreign company, which worries Uruguayan ranchers not only because of the productive disadvantage but also because of the issue of price creation.
At the end of January, the president Luis Lacalle Pou He broke the silence to make his position clear, when the petition from ranchers against the purchase added more and more signatures.
“I understand the point of view of those who sign the letter. There is a business on which Competition Defense must be issued. We’ll see what he says. “It is a totally independent body that does not receive directives,” he clarified. Luis Lacalle Pou when consulted by the press during the Soriano poultry fair.
“If it says black, it is clearly black. I’m not going to say this is white. If your opinion is a gray area, there will be some discretion from the government,” he stressed. “I have my opinion about the concentration (of the slaughter market), but it is not appropriate to give it when there is a State agency making an evaluation,” concluded the President of the Republic.
The letter of the Rural Federation
The Rural Federation of Uruguay At the end of January, it presented to Coprodec a technical work rejecting the purchase of the refrigerators Cologne, The Caballada of Leap and Inaler of Saint Joseph, today owned by Marfrig but that, if the operation is authorized, they would be added to the four plants that Minerva Foods already owns in Uruguay: PUL, Carrasco, Canelones and BPU.
The document is the result of extensive work that included the contribution of specialists and the participation of the 42 federated members that make up the union organization. It also includes a report by the economist Luciana Macedo, former member of the Commission for the Promotion and Defense of Competition.
The work presented explains, among other things, how the livestock operation for the Uruguayan producer and why the Rural Federation understands that the sale of the refrigerators to Minerva is bad for the country.
“We see as precedent what happened in Paraguay a couple of years ago, that the group Minerva They have the majority of the work and what they do is that they can regulate the purchase price; Today the business, historically, 80% is the final purchase value of the farm, that is, of the product, that is, it is left with very great power and being able to manage the market,” he explained, along the same lines, Joaquín Martinicorena, delegate of the Rural Federation.
Furthermore, he added that “there are more than 30,000 producers who have no possibility of getting together and moving a system of perfect competition in the face of a oligopsony”.
Source: Ambito
