Agreement between the BCRA and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Boost Foreign Investments and Exports

The President of the BCRA, Miguel Pesce, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Felipe Solá, signed today a master agreement to encourage cooperation and exchange of information for improving foreign direct investment in Argentina and promoting exports of goods and services.

At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Felipe Solá—accompanied by Jorge Neme, the Secretary of International Economic Relationships—explained: “promoting foreign direct investment (FDI) in line with Argentina's productive development strategies calls for reliable statistical information on investments from foreign companies set up in Argentina.”

In addition, he stated: “We have two goals: to promote investments in strategic sectors to diversify the productive matrix of regions, serving dynamic external markets, and to promote investments to make productive activities in Argentina more complex and efficient. Under this agreement, the BCRA will send regularly updated data on foreign direct investment to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs segmented by country of origin and activity sector. This will let us analyze FDI trends in Argentina—at contextual and structural level—and develop targeted attraction policies to position Argentina as an appealing country for these investments.”

Moreover, the Minister pointed out that, at the beginning of the current administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recovered its historical powers regarding trade and investment promotion, which had been conferred to the Ministry of Production during the previous administration. He went on saying: “On that basis, our main goal is to develop and implement a promotion of exports and investment policy aimed at enhancing the volume and diversity of Argentine products across the world, while making the Argentine productive framework more complex and larger.”

In turn, Pesce highlighted the BCRA’s efforts to encourage investments in projects that may boost the exporting capacity and attract foreign currency in Argentina. He added: “Our citizens have saving capacity and financial resources available for consumption and for making investment, but Argentina's economy is also open to foreign investments, as long as they are aimed at developing productive activities. We do not endorse financial investments with high volatility that bring about recurring crises.”

At the BCRA we are working to streamline statistics based on the highest international standards, which will let us resume the publication of data on foreign direct investment, which was discontinued in 2017. These data are necessary to understand the flow of investments and to provide instruments to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to carry out promotion actions.

In turn, Solá explained: “the promotion of exports strategy is based on a joint endeavor with the private sector. For this reason, we have created the Public-Private Council for the Promotion of Exports (CPPPE, in Spanish), with the participation of more than 247 associations and institutions related to foreign trade—gathering 68 Argentine productive sectors and more than 18,000 companies. The Council is concerned with Argentina's trade agenda for the opening of markets and a plan for trade promotion with representatives around the world. It also stimulates the dialogue with the provinces, whose work groups define the Argentine supply to be exported from each exporting sector.”

It is worth mentioning that the Plan for the Promotion of Exports 2021 has been launched—based on the prioritized markets. It is expected that 657 activities will be concluded abroad. At a global level, they are grouped by type: workshops of technology offer (89), official missions (295), fairs (140), business rounds (40) and positioning actions (93). These actions will cover the entire Argentine productive range: manufactures of agricultural origin (MOA, in Spanish) (28%), manufactures of industrial origin (MOI, in Spanish) (39%), knowledge-based services (14%), creative and cultural industries (9%), and tourism and sports (10%). Trade promotion is supplemented by a productive investment attraction policy.

August 9, 2021.

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