(Photo: Grain cargoes waiting on the Paraná River, near Rosario City)
Buenos Aires, December 18th. During the last weeks, the Ag-Industry Secretariat completed the revision of grain exports authorizations granted to trading companies in the latest days of August. In those days it was a secret with voices that the President Macri’s Administration was going to re-impose export taxes to the grains, like corn, wheat, and barley, between others. The rapid reaction of the grain exporters was to anticipate the solicitudes of grain shipment (in the bureaucratic slang known as DJVE’s) with the intention of freezing the 0% of export tax, buying the grain to farmers anxious to avoiding the new duty.
Therefore, in the last two days of August, exporters registered foreign trade operations by 8.5 MMT, an unusual volume for that time. The new export taxes scheme was enforced since September 1st. But the registrations were made according to the legal framework.
Despite this fact, top officials from the Central Administration guilted the Ag-Industry ones for permitting the registration of grain exports, eluding the payment of the taxes. Pressed by the higher Executive Power level, the Secretariat began a revision of the DJVE’s from those days and in the last weeks enacted a series of orders rejecting exports.
In the following chart, made by RIA Consultores for www.eFarmNewsAr.com, we can see how the global largest grain trading companies were punished by the Government, rejecting its shipments. The shipments rejected totalized 2.7 million metric tons, mainly wheat, corn, and barley.
The most affected company was the local branch of Archer Daniels Midland, with 660 thousand tons. On the other hand, Louis Dreyfus Commodities surpassed the revision and only 40,000 tons were rejected.
Sources from the exporters told to www.eFarmNewsAr.com that companies are still discussing the DJVE’s rejected. They argued that they bought the grain and they hope that the next bureaucratic stage, in Public Incomes Federal Administration (AFIP) understand the actual situation. Moreover, exporters argued that the re-impose of export duties was unconstitutional between the enacted of the order (September 1st) and its approval by the Parliament (December 15th). This fact opens a judicial way to continue the discussion.
