Argentina, a country with a maritime coastline of enormous length and surface, with immeasurable fish wealth. In terms of fisheries development and support for local industrial activity, there is something that someone is obviously doing very wrong. The process is like this: a rickety national fleet of old boats, based in the ports of Patagonia, captures, in the quantity and conditions it can, the precious Patagonian shrimp or wild shrimp. In Argentina, with only a minimal and primitive process, it freezes it in “pills” and exports it “in block” to food marketers in Spain, which re-export it to Europe, at a considerable price, after processing it and applying added value in a modern processing plant being built… in Paraguay.
At the moment there are two Iberian companies, Pamape SL and Wofco SA , that have invested more than USD 20 million in the processing plant in the city of Hohenau, department of Itapúa, 6 kilometers from the Paraná River, not far from the border. with Argentina. The industrial venture will generate labor for 400 people, and will have a processing capacity of 24 tons/day. Thus, given that investors find “competitive costs” in our neighbor Paraguay – along with Bolivia, the only landlocked South American country – Argentina only supplies shrimp as a basic raw material. In short, the country that owns the resource can only carry out the activity in a primary way, as in colonial times, while industrialization, value addition and international marketing is carried out in another “more competitive” country, compared to the noses of those responsible for the national government in the Chancellery, the Malvinas Secretariat, the Fisheries Secretariat, the Ministry of Production, etc.
The representative of the companies, which together make up the “South Atlantic Company”, with tax headquarters in Paraguay, revealed to the Paraguayan press that “we did some research work and we were very attracted to it, especially the value of Paraguay's energy, it is very competitive. We made comparisons with other nations, and Paraguay has everything necessary to be able to enter the sector and establish itself” in an elliptical reference to fiscal pressure and labor costs. Meanwhile, in Argentina, the government only managed to lower some withholding points on fishery exports in general, and instead raise them on “frozen blocks.” This minimum measure will not affect commercial practice with this modality. In fact, national fishermen have already announced that they have no real incentives or conditions to produce products with high added value in the country.
Source: Puerto Magazine https://revistapuerto.com.ar/2021/11/el-langostino-patagonico-generara-cuatroientos-empleos-en-paraguay/
