Global Courant
The pre-candidate for president stressed the need to achieve stability in order to have predictability.
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, head of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, assured that the first step for the agricultural sector is “lowering withholdings as important as closing the gap in the dollar exchange rate” and explained why achieving this must be done to achieve economic stability.
“The countryside pays for the fiscal deficit with its withholdings. The farmers pay for it, the tamberos who get up at 4 in the morning, the lemon growers of Tucumán, the rice growers of Corrientes. To lower them we have to balance the public accounts in the first year of government. This will allow us to provide predictability in the exchange rate,” he said.
Horacio Rodriguez Larreta. Photo Maxi Failla.
The pre-candidate for president announced that next week he will present his proposals for the development of the countryside and the food industries in Río Cuarto.
“We have a plan to double Argentine exports in a period between six and eight years. I can detail it market by market. There are non-traditional markets that are growing. We have to return to the attack with the Mercosur agreement with the European Union that incorporates 800 million people with high purchasing power. Today, Argentina has trade agreements only with countries that represent 10% of the world’s population,” he said in statements to Radio Rivadavia.
Regarding the measures, he explained: “We are going to tend to a single exchange rate, no one is seriously going to say that we can have a single exchange rate on the first day. We are going to eliminate the withholding for all regional products on the first day, more than 200 for the entire country. And we are going to have a commitment to lower withholdings: they are a horrible tax. We have to remove all those that are quantitative export quotas. Of course we have to defend the table from the Argentines, but we have to do it intelligently, it doesn’t have to go against producing more and generating work. We want to export more and we put a ceiling”.
Rodríguez Larreta pointed out that “producers are fed up with hearing promises that are then not fulfilled” and affirmed that he will always speak to them with the truth.
Asked about the withholdings on soybeans, wheat and corn, he assured: “We are going to lower the withholdings, but it has to go hand in hand with guaranteeing stability. There is no point in lowering withholdings, not achieving economic stability and raising them again. Without stability there is no predictability. Having a single and stable exchange rate is as important as lower withholdings. If there is no stability, there is no loss that can be sustained over time”.
Rodríguez Larreta also explained that he has a personal link with the agricultural sector. “Our family has lived in the countryside for many years. In my case, my cousin is dedicated to administration. As producers we live with the anguish of many. There is no certainty, one does not know what the rules of the game are. It is very difficult to make investments, today you do one thing and the rules change, the soybean dollar appears and then they take it out. Then the soybean dollar 2 appears. It is very difficult to predict, especially for small producers whose daily bread depends on the fields. It is a government that every time the countryside raises a little bit its head hits it with a saber, with very hostile attitudes with very offensive words, ”he said.
Finally, he stated: “You have to have a comprehensive look, there are no patches or a solution that we can give in a title. It is much more complex, but it is the great engine we have to move Argentina forward. It is a sector that reacts quickly: when there are clear signals and a government with clear rules, the countryside invests immediately”.
