MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil plans to counter Argentina’s latest imports’ measures, if they affect trade

Pimentel will wait until March to decide on the latest Argentine package

Brazil has plans to counter the latest battery of trade restrictions which Argentina announced, if they turn out to the barriers for Brazilian exports, reported the influential Folha de Sao Paulo.

“Trade war with Argentina heats up and Brazil prepares a counter attack strategy”, was the headline of the Folha piece published this week.

Argentina announced that beginning February all importers will have to fill a sworn statement (DJAI) to be managed by the tax revenue office AFIP. Some Argentine manufacturers fear bureaucratic delays could threaten a fluid supply of industry inputs.

Brazilian authorities “don’t discard adopting the necessary counter measures” against the country’s main trade partner in Latin America, but this “will only happen as of March following the evaluation of the impact of the new Cristina Fernandez administration imports policy”, pointed out the Sao Paulo newspaper quoting reliable sources in the Ministry of trade and industry.

Nevertheless there are ‘expectations’ in Brasilia that Buenos Aires will ‘review’ its position regarding Brazil and other Mercosur partners. Brazil is Argentina’s main trade partner, and absorbs most of Argentine manufactured goods exports.

According to the resolution published in the Official Gazette all Argentine importers must fill the sworn statement, DJAI, before purchasing goods overseas and the government then has fifteen days to free the authorization

The situation led to Brazil’s Industry and Trade minister Fernando Pimentel statement that with Argentina political relations are good “but we have permanent problems with regard to trade”.

Likewise the powerful Industry Federation from Sao Paulo, FIESP, warned that the latest Argentine package is an attack on Mercosur and clearly limits imports and trade.

“Having to discuss case by case with each importer to decide if it can purchase or not in other countries is clearly geared to limit imports, and if it becomes effective it will impact on Mercosur”, said Roberto Gianetti de Fonseca, head of FIESP.