MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Car production halted in Argentine plant due to lack of imported parts

Stellantis hoped to resume production Thursday but there were no assurances

Carmakers Fiat had to halt production Wednesday at its plant in the Argentine province of Córdoba due to the lack of imported inputs, the Stellantis group explained.

The company thus joins a long list of manufacturers who needed to modify or suspend work altogether for that reason, due to restrictions on access to US dollars as Superminister Sergio Massa seeks to keep all hard currency from leaving the country.

Since the administration of President Alberto Fernández announced a new scheme for processing imports last week, problems like Fiat's are becoming commonplace.

According to Infobae, production during the first shift at the Cordoba plant, where the Cronos model is assembled, was completely suspended Wednesday, while the afternoon shift focused on limited tasks.

The activity was expected to return to normal Thursday but there were no assurances on the arrival of specific parts already in the country but still to be released through Customs.

Wednesday was not the first time Fiat had to reduce its production pace in the last few weeks, but it certainly was the biggest stoppage recorded this year, it was explained.

Stellantis (the company that includes Fiat, Jeep, and Ram) was 10 days short of halting production altogether during the labor conflict affecting local tire manufacturers, CEO Martin Zuppi said in a radio statement when the announcement of the release of the 250,000th Cronos was made.

In mid-October, the new import authorization system that replaced the SIMIs scheme started to operate. For the time being, some files of the old system that were already approved will “coexist” with the Import System of the Argentine Republic (SIRA), Infobae said. The mechanism seeks to give authorities more control over the procedures and criteria for the disbursement of foreign currency.