Silvia Naishtat
05/22/2021 10:01 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 05/22/2021 10:01 PM
-Unlike other opportunities, this time there was a general corporate rejection of the closure of meat exports ...
- It has a tremendous negative effect. Argentina has been a major exporter of meat, the measures taken in 2006 onwards strongly depressed the stock, and participation in the international market, recovering markets is increasingly difficult, let alone in times of pandemic. Therefore, we are giving the possibility to other competitors and it will be difficult to recover those clients, because once they cancel the orders they take another orientation. It also has an impact on the industry and local employment. We are talking about value chains. We have suggested taking into account the tax burden that food has of almost 40% if the taxes of the Nation, Province and Municipality are added, in drinks that are almost 10 points more, a VAT refund.
-But how is a refund of this type implemented in a State that has difficulties, for example, in segmenting rates?
-We brought this up to the Ministry of Social Development as a result of the bankarization that has been generated from the Alimentar card to the lower-income sectors.
The VAT could be returned to them in a bank account, other than saying "there is no VAT" because VAT disappears.
But to a person who bought for one hundred return the 10, the 20 that correspond for food regardless of agreements on popular cuts that can be achieved.
-Those agreements by popular courts failed ...
-I insist on seeking agreements, agreement because that is what gives continuity to the production model, gives credibility and obviously confidence to foreign buyers, which is what we need because Argentina needs foreign exchange and we can provide it.
-The Government justifies its reaction in the rise in the price of food. Why do they go up?
-The interannual consumer price index as of April 2021 was 46.3% and food and alcoholic beverages rose 46.4%, from there up there are items that have increased to 80%. We have had an annual quarterly review agreement between food producers and the government for several years, and it has worked and the government has claimed it. There were 300 and now 600. The maximum prices that appear with the March 2020 pandemic came with price control bringing prices back to March 6 and freezing and generating increases in the 2020 calendar that were from 4 to 10.8% that was the entire increase leaving the factory This is far from the 36% that there was inflation of 38% that there was devaluation of increase of raw materials that go from 35 to 45 percent because it is not only the commodities that increased.There were also salary increases from 32 to 38% not only in the food agreement where there are 15 unions and 29 agreements, there are logistics costs that rose 35% last year. Logistics is very important in food, it must be distributed, there are 280 thousand points of sale throughout the country, supermarkets only cover between 30 and 35%, the rest is the traditional channel, from the kiosk to the Chinese through the neighborhood self-service. We are definitely not the cause of inflation, we are the consequence of inflation. Inflation is multi-causal and we wish we had cost stability to have price stability.Logistics is very important in food, it must be distributed, there are 280 thousand points of sale throughout the country, supermarkets only cover between 30 and 35%, the rest is the traditional channel, from the kiosk to the Chinese through the neighborhood self-service. We are definitely not the cause of inflation, we are the consequence of inflation. Inflation is multi-causal and we wish we had cost stability to have price stability.Logistics is very important in food, it must be distributed, there are 280 thousand points of sale throughout the country, supermarkets only cover between 30 and 35%, the rest is the traditional channel, from the kiosk to the Chinese through the neighborhood self-service. We are definitely not the cause of inflation, we are the consequence of inflation. Inflation is multi-causal and we wish we had cost stability to have price stability.Inflation is multi-causal and we wish we had cost stability to have price stability.Inflation is multi-causal and we wish we had cost stability to have price stability.
-The diet was declared essential, how did the Covid treat them?
-From the beginning we have very strict protocols with testing and transport of personnel.
But it is an additional weight that is calculated as a cost of 20% on payroll.
For dispensed, prevention and transport protocols and tests.
-There are unions that are asking for vaccines, food is an essential activity, are they claiming as businessmen?
-Outside the risk groups or those over 60 that the State is vaccinating, we are asking to be able to vaccinate people.
The level of absenteeism is very high, or 20-30%.
It is difficult to run factories, because you have to find replacement.
We are in these processes without competing with the State, but rather looking for other sources of access to vaccines, for workers in the industry, and for the personnel who are in the plant, not those who are teleworking, at home.
They are formalities since they have to be imported through a pharmaceutical laboratory.
We are working on that, we have not yet achieved it.
-How is the negotiation for a basket of essential prices going?
-In full development.
I aspire to make it happen.
It is company by company.
The idea is of some stability in prices and we aspire to have stability in costs.
The Government called, for example, the manufacturers of inputs and discovered that they have increases of more than 75%.
-On June 8, he will assume as president of the Industrial Union as an expression of a list of unity. You have been critical of the Government ...
-In recent mandates, this idea of a unified list and not of elections or alternatives, but of integration, was put together. Integration implies a vision about heterogeneity and different realities. This is a country, with all the complexities. There are sensitive sectors, more competitive sectors, high technology sectors, medium and low technology sectors, intensive capital, intensive labor. Of all this we must seek a compatibility. That would allow us to go with a united Industrial Union, which does not mean a single thought, but rather means combining plurality, because we believe that the country must also combine plurality. To have an integrated productive project, with a federal, sustainable and inclusive vision. Inclusive has a double vision. On the one hand, into the industry, all the dimensions of the company,from the micro, small, medium and large. Also talking about value chains, which are very important. And also social inclusion. Because industry is employment, it is not just direct employment. There are 1.3 million employees with a multiplier effect of 3 to 1. We have a federal vision, because the realities are different, by province and by region. We have a productivist vision, pro-private initiative.
- Business sectors observe an attitude of advance on private activity by the Government. Does it coincide?
-We believe that the role of private initiative is fundamental. And there are doubts, sometimes uncertainties, nobody disputes the role of the State, but when there is an expansion of the role of the State with strong interference in private activity. And here the State has to provide the framework, the orientation, there have to be State policies, medium and long term. And, within them, that private activity can unfold. We believe that this is the true and great engine of the economy, with special attention to the process of growth, investment, employment, development and defense of the national industry. The UIA is an institution oriented towards the proposal and not merely towards the protest. That does not mean that at one point one does not have to question measures, but it is necessary to have proposals for what we consider to be an industrial policy.And, on the other hand, a strong integration or path towards integration, which was already begun in the administration of President Acevedo, in gender and youth. Therefore, there will be a greater female presence on the executive committee.
- How do you imagine the relationship with the Government?
-I believe in dialogue, I believe in agreement, I learned this from a generation that lived through many divisions and some truly painful ones in this country.
From there and above all, from my international experience, studying the post-Second World War agreements in a Europe that had been devastated, economically and humanly, by all that it had suffered.
They built several countries, starting in 45, they built models of agreement, where the business community and the workers played an important role, together with the political system, in order to build a new paradigm.
A new paradigm based on technological development, on inclusion.
I think that's the role model.
-A lot of that Alberto Fernández promised. In your opinion, what happened that did not materialize?
-In December 2019 the first surprise was the double compensation, which we did not agree to, nor did they consult us.
And, obviously, it is not something that we promote and we consider that it is not a good instrument, because above all it complicates life a lot for small companies and also what blocks the exit blocks the entrance.
Today there is a triple stocks, a ban on suspensions and layoffs since March 2020 and double compensation, which was in place since December 2019. This affects: industrial employment grows very timidly.
Overtime grows, because people prefer to distribute overtime to hiring more staff.
-New contracts are excepted ...
-You never know if that is going to be maintained or if the rules change, because ultimately the rules of origin were changed.
It is necessary to look for incentives to the hiring more than prohibitions.
- How do you imagine the relationship with a government that blames businessmen for inflation?
-Sometimes there are frictions.
But the spirit of business organizations is the search for solutions and not confrontation and confrontation.
The objective is to find that way of solution and that is the aim we have set in this 2-year management.
I come for a single period and I am retiring.
-Did you pay the wealth tax?
-There is a Latin adage that says “the law is hard, but it is the law”, well, I follow the law.
Then, whether I like the law or not, is another matter.
-What do you think of the reform of the public ministry that other business chambers criticize?
-I act as a business leader, I talk about business issues.
In any case, only when there is direct causation, with respect to certain decisions.
But no ... I am not a politician, I am a business leader.
The business leader who frequents and admires Merkel
Son of a doctor and grandson of Elvira de Rioja, the first Argentine biochemist, Daniel Funes de Rioja confesses that although he was not a James Dean rebel, he liked to be against it. He was marked by the National Buenos Aires where he studied his baccalaureate to graduate in just two years as a lawyer. With the title under his arm, he was hired by Alfredo Fortabat, who was already a leading businessman in the agricultural business and in cement. He says that Fortabat introduced him into business circles. It was the incentive for a long local and international career in business unionism.
He is perhaps the only Argentine who frequents Angela Merkel.
“In Geneva, because of my activity in the World Organization of Employers, I spoke with many German trade union leaders.
They told me, look, we sit down with the Federal Chancellor once a week, we argue, we have an agenda for an hour and a half and then we have a beer together.
She is a Christian Democrat and we are not. "
Perhaps because of that experience he defines himself as a dialogist and is inspired by that Europe of reconstruction after the great war.
He met Merkel when it was his turn to lead the Argentine business chapter of the G20.
“She has a very clear vision of where Argentina should go.
And the importance that it can have if it manages to overcome all these contradictions and hurdles that prevent inclusive growth, with the people, "he said.
Thus he convinced the German chancellor to send a message at the last industrial conference.
Alberto Fernández heard it at the end of 2020. In that message, Merkel highlighted the need for Argentina to put its foreign debt in order.
And also choose the paths or priorities for its development.
Funes de Rioja joined the Industrial Union in 1967 and always says that at the time when the UIA was intervened, with the 1976 military coup, he and his colleagues from the UIA's social policy department continued to meet at the headquarters of the entity.
“One day a door opened, someone we did not know, later I found out that it was the colonel controller, he says, what are you doing here?
We were thirty-odd people, we told them that we meet every Monday.
He closed the door and never appeared again.
We had luck".
-Why is it not invested in Argentina?
- We must talk about the 3 C. The first is certainty, we often handle ourselves more with aspirations than with realities.
Know where we stand and where we want to go.
That certainty builds trust.
And also, what we have to generate to consolidate that trust is agreement.
Coordination of State policies, what is the horizon.
We look at the horizon of the next 3 months, or until the next election, we say everything can change in the next election.
And countries, even if they change policies or politics, do not change their economic and productive design.
That the first thing that has to generate is the reaction of the Argentine to invest in the country.
Itinerary
Daniel Funes de Rioja, 75 years old, lawyer graduated from the UBA.
He is president of Copal, the chamber that brings together the food and beverage industry and will be the next president of the UIA.
Between 2014 and 2017 he was president of the Geneva-based World Organization of Employers and is currently its honorary president.
He has presided since 1995 the Technical Labor Committee of the OAS.
And he is a member of the National Academy of Law and Social Sciences and vice of the National Academy of Business Sciences.
He chairs the Cicyp (Inter-American Council for Trade and Production).
Right now
A project.
Try to make Argentina find its way.
A leader,
Mahatma Gandhi
A hero.
Mariano Moreno
A meal.
The roast
A drink.
A good wine
Book.
Unusual stories from the Argentine history of Daniel Balmaceda.
A person who admires
.
Angela Merkel
A movie.
Cinema Paradiso and all those of Italian neo-realism.
A series.
I see few but I love detective English.
A society that he admires.
Having lived some years in Europe I identify myself with a culture that is the Judeo-Christian culture and Western European civilization.