Argentine computer industry threatened by import tariff rescission proposed by Macri
Officials from Argentina's Ministry of Production revealed during a colloquium hosted in seaside Mar del Plata by the IDEA business roundtable that import tariffs for notebooks and desktop PCs will be slashed from the current 35% rate to zero.
The announcement was the latest in a series of trade tariff reductions enacted, often by decree, since President Mauricio Macri took office last December. Manufacturing has contracted 7.3% as of September, with 68,000 jobs lost in that sector - nearly a third of the 213,000 layoffs registered so far this year.
"We agree that lowering the costs of selling information technology would be positive. What we diasagree with is the method," said Sergio Airoldi, CEO of Air Computers wholesalers. "We believe that a sudden and immediate withdrawal of import tariffs as announced, from 35% to 0% and in a recessionary context like the present one, automatically destroys around 3,000 direct jobs and 12,000 indirect ones," Airoldi noted. "This will lead to the closure of a innumerable small and medium businesses that move our industry."
Airoldi instead proposed an import tariff reduction to 16% for finished computers and to 0% for parts, which he believes would lower prices while allowing the sector to adapt without generating a loss of jobs.
Argentina's computer industry employs approximately 5,500 people and according to the Chamber of Argentine Business Machines (CAMOCA) manufactures around half of the 4.7 million units sold nationally in 2015. The sector was given a significant boost by the Conectar Igualdad (Connecting Equality) program announced by former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2010, which distributed 5 million netbooks - all domestically manufactured - to public school children between 2011 and 2015.
The program, despite campaign promises to the contrary, was likewise discontinued by President Macri.
"It's inappropriate and unjust that only PCs, notebooks, tablets be targeted, while continuing to subsidize an inefficient industries such as cell phones and TVs - which cost twice as much as in the rest of the world," Airoldi stressed.
"This administration has demonstrated a capacity for dialogue; it would be good to show capacity for reflection as well."
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