MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mar del Plata claims fisheries industry “no longer profitable”

Fisheries in Argentina has become a non profitable business according to several industry chambers mostly based in Mar del Plata where 50% of the country's fleet is docked and a significant percentage of total catches are landed.

Loss of competitiveness, falling international prices, unfair high seas competition and soaring costs have had a dramatic impact on the industry's operations. "The exhaustion of the four year economic model for the fisheries industry is evident", said Mariano Perez president of Argentina's Chamber of the Fish Industry, Caipa. "Since 2001 the price of fuel has jumped over 200%; salaries and labor costs 230% and vessel and engine spares, oil by-products and any input in Euros has sent shockwaves in the industry", he added. Perez claimed that the current economic policy "marginalizes" fisheries and the new provincial tax legislation ignores an agreement reached by the industry with government a few years ago. Caipa includes twenty of the main companies operating from Mar del Plata. "The re-launching of the fisheries industry in 2002 with the strong devaluation of the Argentine peso has been exhausted; today it's not profitable to continue investing and future prospects are not clear much less predictable", said Perez. Antonio Solimeno who leads consortia with four processing plants and fifteen vessels argues that "fisheries commodities prices have stabilized and some can even fall in the near future, so in this context profitability has virtually vanished". Perez underlined that coordination between the private sector and government officials is essential to prevent the industry from falling back to the 2201 situation. "The tax reimbursement system could be a good mechanism but in the way it is actually implemented it's innocuous for Mar del Plata industry", insisted Perez. A more cautious comment from Oscar Fortunato, president of the Argentine Fisheries Companies Council, Cepa, stated that "even when there are many things to correct, I believe the government is beginning to understand the situation we are going through".