MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina must act seriously and stop childish attitudes, says top industry leader

Cristiano Rattazzi, Fiat’s CEO in Argentina: “you can’t not pay a debt and laugh at the creditor”

Argentina’s notorious Interior Trade Secretary Guillermo Moreno has triggered another controversy, this time among board members from Industries Union of Argentina, UIA, involving one of its vice-presidents and the CEO of Fiat.

“Moreno is no patriot, I don’t share any of the comments made about him. Not only he is not a patriot, he is a mountain: the incident with lead poisoning ink to ban books imports was deplorable. It’s time we act seriously and stop acting as children”, said Fiat CEO Cristiano Rattazzi.

The question that triggered the reply was referred to recent statements of one of the UIA vice-presidents Juan Carlos Sacco who praised Moreno and went as far as stating he was a “true patriot”, because of his policy of safeguarding Argentine industry and jobs from ‘cheap’ imports.

Rattazzi recalled that for years he has been warning that inflation is a serious problem: “you can’t do what you want all the time and ignore the rest of the people. You can’t not pay a debt and laugh at the creditors who didn’t collect their money: sooner of later, with this kind of attitude day after day, at some point problems surface”.

The Italian-Argentine car industry entrepreneur said Argentina has the capacity and resources to grow “with no need to adopt protectionist policies” if things are well planned and executed.

“We must be efficient, competitive, productive, innovative and respectful of others”, underlined Rattazzi.

Finally regarding the current policy of sworn statements to delay the influx of imports, Rattazzi was straight and direct: “my feeling is that problems will emerge. We still don’t have the stats from March, but I am certain that they have restricted and slowed economic activity”.

“Argentina needs to be serious; it is rapidly loosing credibility and shutting out books with the excuse of the lead-content in the ink books are published with was simply too much. It makes complete buffoons of us and the country”, underlined Fiat’s CEO.