MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Maritime transport crisis affects Catamarca exports of must

In the meantime, Catamarca must ship goods through the port of Buenos Aires

Export of Argentine must through the San Francisco Path to Chile from the province of Catamarca have to wait due to the international logistics scenario, it was reported Thursday.

Faced with this situation, provincial authorities were said to be looking for an alternative, which will most likely be the port of Buenos Aires.

Catamarca's Director of Provincial Exchange Gabriel Molina explained “what is happening in the world is that there are closures of the main ports, there are no containers available, you cannot get reservations in the ports of the Chilean sector, there is a complication in the shipping companies”.

Molina also mentioned negotiations were going on to ship goods from El Paso, but it would be more complex “and it will probably not be in the short term.”

“The first lorries of must will have to leave through the port of Buenos Aires and not through Chile. But in parallel to what is being worked on in the port of Buenos Aires, we are taking steps on the Chilean side to be able to get the loads out of the Paso San Francisco as soon as possible,” Molina also explained.

“We are subject to a global logistics problem, which affects the entire agro-industrial sector. That explains the reason why the departure through the San Francisco Pass is delayed, but as soon as we have the available reservations on vessels, we will export must through there,” Molina hoped.

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, maritime transport has seen a bottleneck of goods at the world's main ports with an ensuing shortage of containers.

Catamarca had planned to make the first export of concentrated must in October. About 2,800 tons were going to be shipped through the ports of the Atacama region in Chile to South Africa. But under the current conditions, cargoes will need to leave through Buenos Aires. In Tinogasta there are already 10 containers ready to be transported.

Catamarca Governor Raúl Jalil met on Oct. 1 with Argentina's Ambassador to Chile, Rafael Bielsa, and the Regional Governor of Atacama, Miguel Vargas Correa, to assess the current state of regional ports and their plans for the near future.

Argentina and Chile have been working on the Bioceanic Corridor project, which seeks to promote the exchange of goods and services from the provinces that make up the region with the international markets of the Asia-Pacific.

Must is the first step in red winemaking after the grapes have been harvested from the vine. The must contain grape juice and pomace (the solids from the skins, seeds and stems). Concentrated must is used to improve the alcohol levels of certain strains, and is currently in great demand in the food industry for the production of juices.