"The measure announced by the president is very good," said Alejandro Pannunzio, the president of the Blueberry Producers Association of the Mesopotamia, Argentina, about the increase of the non-taxable minimum for the payment of employer charges.
The announcement of the lowering of the non-taxable minimum for employer charges was positively received by the blueberry producers. The measure, as presented by the government, seeks to alleviate regional economies. In that sense, the national government decided that employers will not pay taxes on salaries of up to $ 17,500.
"Whenever we talk about competitiveness, there is the issue of labor cost. In that sense, this measure is a great step forward. It will help reduce labor costs without touching the salary that workers receive," said Alejandro Pannunzio, the president of APAMA.
He, along with other representatives of the productive sector, stated that this was positive news. Pannunzio also had the opportunity to talk with the governor of Entre Rios, Gustavo Bordet, with whom he exchanged ideas on other problems that afflict the sector.
"The country's situation is complex and each sector asks for its own. This measure is very positive for the blueberry sector and its impact will be different in each regional activity, according to their costs. There are other measures that we still need the government to review, but this news is good and we want to highlight it."
Withholdings, a pending issue
"It's very positive that we continue in the search and working to open new markets, such as India and Vietnam, where the President is traveling tomorrow, and Japan. We must continue investing in the opening of new markets, just like we've done in China, where we made a large investment to export and a short time after the Chinese Government reduced tariffs from 30 to 15%. I doubt that this would have happened if we hadn't made exports there," the producer said.
To detail the complexity of the subject, he said: "Each export we make includes boxes, labels, pots, packaging, cold storage, etc., and we pay our withholdings based on that FOB value. So at the its not 12%, the percentage is much higher than what producers charge, and that is leaving many producers out of the market. That's another urgent issue to keep a part of the industry alive," he concluded.
Regarding some proposals to decrease withholdings, Pannunzio said "they should repeal the withholdings or make them part of other national taxes, or they could accelerate the VAT refund or make it available to pay other taxes. Export refunds should be less than 6%, like they were a few months ago. We need to look for economic or financial tools that can help the activity to grow and generate more jobs and foreign exchange earnings for export, but all this must be done now."
More information:
APAMA
0345-154-20 35 43
prensaapama@gmail.com
www.apama.com.ar