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Export duties (DEX) on grains continue to be the subject of debate and confrontation between the agricultural sector and the national government. Some argue that it is impossible to reduce them, much less eliminate them, while others say it is absolutely feasible to do so and also, at the same time, increase production and collection through other channels.

To analyze the issue, Grupo Los Grobo, the Foundation for Agricultural Development of Argentina (FADA) and MAUÁ organized a virtual talk under the title: “Zero withholdings: how could they be implemented? Possible impacts and models” with the participation of Roberto Bisang (economist, professor at the IIEP) and Agustín Tejeda (analyst of the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange), which was moderated by Gustavo Grobocopatel (Grupo Los Grobo) and David Miazzo (Chief Economist of FADA).

Bisang said that export duties and restrictions are currently applied based on assumptions from the past, of which he described the three main ones. "It is believed that the costs of agriculture are pesified while their income is in dollars, but when we look at the cost structure we find that more than half are dollarized, be it rents, imported supplies and others," said the specialist. . On the other hand, “it is lost sight of the fact that from the genetics of the grain to the shelf there are an infinity of steps: it is no longer corn, corn flour, polenta at home, it is a set of industrial steps with transformation or conditioning which means that, at the end of the day, the part related to the primary sector in the total price is less relevant than the collective imagination believes”, he detailed. Finally, he explained, “there is the belief that we put a total tax on them, they say nothing, they continue to sow the same, but the statistics show that in recent years the reactions of the agricultural and agro-industrial economic agents have begun to work more than in the past. to the price system,” he said.

"As DEX and export restrictions increased, the growth rate of the area planted in Argentina decreased," Tejeda said. “If we phase out DEXs, we see that the sector could quickly respond with a further increase in production and exports. If the policies remain as they are, we would hardly grow 5%”, affirmed the economist.

For his part, Miazzo assured that "the gradual elimination of DEXs has a direct impact on the economic activity, vision and life of the towns and cities of the productive interior", and considered "the lack of energetic support from citizens striking in general and the political actors of the interior in particular, on the reduction or elimination of export duties since it is the provinces that put in and then do not receive”, he said. In this sense, FADA made two reports for areas of Buenos Aires and Córdoba that show how much the regions lose due to the DEX and everything that could be done with that money.

During the talk, the participants wondered "where the proposals are rooted towards an overcoming scheme". In this regard, Bisang said that "there are very few institutional areas in Argentina for an effort of this type." “If we think about the academic system, it is practically impossible. If we think about the NGO system, it is very difficult to find one in the long term to make a project of this type. And if we think about it in the public sector, it is absolutely dismembered. Anyone must have heard 10, 20, 30 plans in the last 5 years, inconsistent with each other and all made from a partial vision; the scope of discussion is lacking”, pointed out the economist.

In that sense, Miazzo expressed: “It is our responsibility to put on the long headlights to show society that we really want more development, more genuine employment, better quality of life. show that reducing DEX is a tool to achieve all that, it is not reducing to reduce but for the general good”.

According to Grobocopatel, the agroindustrial production sector "has failed to create integrating proposals and to build the bridge of how this can be done to achieve the general balance that economists say." "It remains for us as a homework to say "zero withholdings", but, with ingenuity, put together a design so that this happens and is something positive for the whole of society. Not only for the agricultural sector, "concluded the businessman. → www.clarin.com

Automatic translation from spanish.