This is a talk that had been pending since the last Argentine Industrial Conference last month. The Minister had expressed to the UIA that he was looking forward to speaking at the meeting.
He Minister of Deregulation, Federico Sturzenegger, finally had the meeting he had hoped to hold with the Executive Committee of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA) headed by its president Daniel Funes from Rioja. In a meeting that took place at the headquarters of the manufacturing plant, on Avenida de Mayo in the City of Buenos Aires, the official He told them the ideas he has to improve company costs.
As reported by the UIA, the talk had a pleasant tone and there were three types of claims or “proposals” that were made to Sturzenegger, who confessed that He was left wishing to be invited to speak at the last Industrial Conference which took place at the Buenos Aires City Convention Center last month. There it was interpreted that the non-attendance of President Javier Milei was an act of “emptying” of the event, although during it the head of the Customs Collection and Control Agency (ARCA), Juan Pazo, who at that time was Secretary of Development, announced the sending to Congress of a law to encourage industrial investments
The businessmen presented, as priority issues, an agenda that serves to improve the competitiveness of the industry to the tax issue, labor lawsuits against companies and logistics costs.
In the first case, They asked for a solution for the multiple tax withholding systems that generate favorable balances for companies that are never recovered. To this end, they asked that a Single Account be launched, where national and provincial balances converge.
Among the taxes that most concern companies, due to their strong impact on the cost structure, are Gross Income and municipal taxes. Some studies indicate that They add 9% to a company’s costs, which is excessive at an international level. The questions have to do with the SIRCREB. This is a system that allows provincial treasuries to make discounts from bank accounts. This is the case of a company that has a plant in Córdoba, sells its product in a shopping center in Caballito and is bought by a woman residing in Chubut. The company will receive a charge of Gross Income from Córdoba, City of Buenos Aires and Chubut. Businessmen demanded to simplify the presentation of information.
Concern about the excessive growth of labor lawsuits
On the other hand, Industrialists expressed their concern about the excessive growth of labor lawsuits against companies. Only one province in the country, so far, has adopted the complete regulations of the Occupational Risk Law: Mendoza. The Occupational Risk Insurers (ART) have been denouncing the gradual increase in lawsuits against them and the companies from employees who do not accept the compensation established by law. This year there would be some 120,000 trials underway.
It happens that Labor jurisdiction belongs to the provinces while the Risk Law is national.. The provinces have to adhere to and validate in their legislatures what the regulations stipulate. These determine that, once compensation has been established through administrative procedures, an employee can file a lawsuit. There the judges then take their own criteria to establish compensation, proposed byr experts who are “hooked” to the amount of the sentence, and also adopt own criteria to use inflation update rates. The reform that was made in 2017 establishes that when provinces join, judges have to adopt national criteria while expert fees cannot be established as a percentage of a sentence.
On the other hand, the industrialists made observations to Sturzenegger regarding the costs in Argentina to operate in the ports, which means that export prices leave Argentine companies out of the game.
“The UIA authorities highlighted the macroeconomic order achieved during 2024 and asked to advance a competitiveness agenda next year,” they say from the manufacturing plant. It should be remembered that local industrialists are demanding measures to improve their ability to compete against imported products, to the extent that the national government makes decisions that tend to facilitate the entry of merchandise from abroad.
Source: Ambito
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