The
Acindar
steel group announced this Tuesday that
it will paralyze its industrial plants throughout the country between March 18 and April 15
, due to a sharp
drop in its sales
, which company sources estimate would range
between 35% and 40%
.
"We knew that a difficult year was coming, but
the drop is much higher than what we projected
," said the director of Institutional Relations of the industrial group,
Facundo Velasco
.
And he remarked: "In the 20 years that I have worked in the company,
such a collapse has never been recorded
."
The manager pointed out that
Acindar will give "unused vacations, compensatory francs
and we send personnel to train in security, a very important issue for the group and in which you can never let your guard down."
In the province of Santa Fe, the Acindar group owns the
Villa Constitución steel mill
and industrial facilities in
Rosario
and production plants in
La Tablada
, Buenos Aires, and
Villa Mercedes
, San Luis.
The Acindar executive also said that "all plants will stop for the same amount of time and then the particular situations will be monitored," although he did not rule out that the paralysis of activity could extend beyond April.
In relation to the pronounced drop in sales, Velasco said that "it is a general situation in the country, which is beyond the company's capabilities. Demand from industry and construction dropped very sharply," he asserted.
Finally, he indicated that since the group's objective is "to take care of the sustainability of the business and employment of our people, we stop producing to accommodate the stock level to the lower current and projected sales."
"The company has a plan to increase exports, but sales abroad are not enough to compensate for the decline in the domestic market," he concluded.
The Argentine steel company Acindar is controlled by the multinational ArcelorMittal.
It has plants in the cities of Villa Constitución and Rosario (in the central province of Santa Fe), in the Buenos Aires towns of La Tablada and San Nicolás, and in the city of Villa Mercedes (in the central province of San Luis).
According to a report from the Argentine Steel Chamber, crude steel production had a year-on-year drop of 7.8% last January, while the production of rolled products registered a collapse of 21.8% year-on-year.
The fall in demand for steel products has a direct connection with the contraction in activities in sectors such as construction, the automotive industry and the production of household appliances, in a context of plummeting mass consumption.
According to the consulting firm Ferreres & Asociados, the general level of activity registered a drop of 3.8% year-on-year in January 2024. For its part, the seasonally adjusted measurement registered a contraction of 0.8% compared to the previous month.
"These extraordinary measures have the sole purpose of minimizing the impact of the current situation. At all times the company's will is to redouble its efforts to preserve people, understanding that the only way to achieve this is by guaranteeing the sustainability of the business" , assured Acindar, who indicated that he is looking for alternatives to compensate for the drop in sales in the domestic market by seeking new export markets for his products.