Argentina and Brazil advance in regional economic integration | News

The Argentine Economy Minister, Sergio Massa, held a meeting with the Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, and his counterpart Fernando Haddad to announce the creation of a financial instrument to attract exports from Brazil worth 600 million dollars.

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In a joint press conference with Minister Haddad, the Unión por la Patria presidential candidate also declared that his country and Brazil took another step in the integration process.

Massa explained that this step was "from the physical point of view, because we renewed the Sao Tome-Sao Borja agreement, which allows us to continue managing the entire border crossing process and the logistics facility with the management and documentation center."

Likewise, he explained that "we found a mechanism that surpasses ideas that we had been working on together with Minister Haddad and whose objective was to guarantee the automotive, Brazilian and Argentine, and food, Brazilian and Argentine sectors, that they are highly integrated."

Regarding this "instrument for financing Brazilian exports for 600 million dollars, the head of Economy explained that "Every 600 million dollars that Brazil imports to Argentina in automotive matters, there are 600 million dollars that return from Argentina to Brazil in automotive matters for the assembly and synergy that their industries have".

Other issues discussed by both delegations included the entry of Argentina into the bloc of emerging economies, the Brics group, the opening of agricultural markets, the bidding for works on the second section of the President Néstor Kirchner gastroduct and the bilateral strategic maritime transport agreement. and fluvial.

“There were people who, without looking at the impact it has on the Argentine economy, began to talk about breaking Mercosur, about rejecting entry into the Brics, without understanding that the destinies of Argentina and Brazil are inextricably linked, because between the two of us we are the owners of almost 20 percent of the protein the world consumes," he said.

To conclude, Minister Massa thanked the fact that the initiative was possible thanks to the work of the Brazilian Ministry of Finance, the BNDES bank, Banco Do Brasil, the Argentine Ministry of Economy, with the support and guarantee of the Latin American Development Bank ( CAF).