One of the main parts of the legislative package submitted by the government of Javier Milei to Congress is the Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI). This package has already been approved in the Chamber of Deputies and is now being dealt with by the Senate.
By: Alejandro Iturbe
What is RIGI? A trade publication explains that its objective is “to attract long-term investment projects from an amount equal to or greater than 200 million dollars [NdR: up to 900 million]”[1]. This is an amount that is only within the reach of large imperialist investors and a few large national companies that associate with them.
Milei’s government seeks that these “large investments” be directed to “mines, quarries, forests and similar assets or in infrastructure works initiated in said period.” To the best of our knowledge, underlying the RIGI is the project of a new and significant leap in the transfer and plundering of the country’s natural resources in sectors such as mining (for example, lithium, of which Argentina has one of the largest reserves in the world, and copper), oil and gas, or the logging of large swathes of native forests (today legally prohibited in several regions of the country).
Likewise, the bill would allow for the control of the infrastructure works necessary for its exploitation by the imperialist investors and their big national associates, as is the case of the big gas pipelines parallel to the Andes mountain range, related to the extraction of oil from the Vaca Muerta oil field, in Neuquén, in the hands of Techint. This company is one of the major supporters of Milei’s government, which gave it control of YPF (the state-owned oil company)[2].
To these “investors,” the Government wants to offer a “ready-made table” of great benefits and tax and customs exemptions, since it exempts them from paying taxes on imports related to their project and, for three years, they will not pay taxes on the exports generated by the project.
Finally, the RIGI intends to legally “shield” its beneficiaries (what the hypocritical language of the capitalists and their media calls “stability and legal security”). Its text states that once a project is included in the RIGI by the “application authority” (Milei’s own government) “any regulation or practice, national or local, by which it is limited, restricted, violated, hindered or distorted will be null and void and the courts must immediately prevent its application.” In other words, once the RIGI is approved, any national or provincial law, as well as any judicial process or ruling that reverses or restricts these benefits must be considered “null and void.”
Bourgeois sectors that are opposed
We have said that the RIGI will only benefit the imperialist “big investors” and the few national companies that can associate with them, like Techint or Cresud (owner of 150,000 hectares in Salta, today protected by the “forest law”). The other bourgeois sectors are excluded from its benefits and are harmed by this law. That is why, at the same time that they support other aspects of the Government’s policy, such as the fiscal adjustment and the Labor Reform, they have come out to pressure the senators to prevent the RIGI from being approved.
For example, Elio de Re, president of ADIMRA (Association of Metallurgical Industrialists of the Argentine Republic), “warned that the RIGI could generate unfair competition with the pre-existing industry” because even if the manufacturing cost of a product were the same in Argentina and the U.S., the tax and customs benefits for its beneficiaries would make it “30% less expensive to buy it abroad.” The most affected are the SMEs (small and medium-sized companies) which, together with other business chambers, “marched” to the Senate to pressure them not to approve the RIGI [1].
Regional economies will also be harmed. The provincial governors are in favor of the surrender and plundering of natural resources, but they intend to have a slightly larger portion of benefits for their provinces and their bourgeoisies. This regime totally excludes them from the business, even at the legislative level. That is why they have also opposed the RIGI [2]. These contradictions within the bourgeoisie are the ones that explain why the Government has had many difficulties in passing the RIGI in the Senate and why it is still not certain that it will succeed in doing so.
More destruction of nature
The approval and implementation of the RIGI means not only more plundering of natural resources. It also means a new escalation in the destruction and degradation of nature suffered by our country. All these large mining and oil projects pollute the soil and appropriate the water of the region, to the detriment of the majority of the population.
One of the reasons that generated the Jujeñazo (a series of protests and demonstrations in Jujuy) last year was the fact that the massive intensification of lithium extraction deprived thousands of small farmers (mostly descendants of native peoples) of their water and land, who united with teachers and state employees fighting for their salaries [3]. Even the Perito Moreno glacier, a valuable natural heritage of the country and the world and a great reserve of pure water, has had initial signs of oil contamination [4].
The same is true of the authorization for the logging of thousands of hectares that Cresud intends to dedicate to agribusiness. Or the use of fracking in Vaca Muerta.
No benefit to the country or its people
All this is at the service of the immense profits of the imperialist “investors” and of a few national companies that export these minerals, hydrocarbons, and foodstuffs. All that remains for the country and its population is the destruction of nature and yet more hunger and misery.
Let’s take a recent example: oil and gas production has increased a lot in the last few years. Gas for domestic consumption is not only scarce but, in the midst of very cold weather, a family must pay between 3 and 5 times more than the previous month.
The RIGI will only aggravate the surrender of the country to imperialism, the destruction of nature, and will make essential services such as gas, electricity, water, and transportation even more expensive. That is why we workers must fight for it not to be approved or implemented.
Unity of action with all those who want to prevent its approval is important. For example, the leadership of the mining union (AOMA)[5]. But it is necessary to understand that, if we stop there, the basic situation, that is, the subjugation of the country to imperialism and its consequences (the plundering of the country and its natural resources, the destruction of nature, the growth of hunger and misery) will continue.
In the framework of this struggle against the RIGI, we affirm that, in order to reverse this situation of the country, the only fundamental solution is a revolution of the workers and the people that liquidates the imperialist plundering and the big national enterprises. It must expropriate the big multinational and “national” companies, and stop paying the public debt and break with the IMF. It must be a national project opposed to dependent capitalism and subordination to imperialism. The project can only be that of a Socialist Argentina, without the IMF or capitalists, built by a workers and popular government, whose measures and policies (including how to use the immense natural resources that the country possesses) are democratically defined to satisfy the needs of the workers and the people and not at the service of the profits of imperialism and a few “national” companies. That is the PSTU’s proposal.
[1] Ley Bases: las pymes marcharán el viernes al Senado en rechazo al RIGI (c5n.com)
[3] Argentina | Sigue la lucha en Jujuy – Liga Internacional de los Trabajadores (litci.org)
[5] https://laopinionaustral.com.ar/argentina/aoma-se-expreso-contra-el-rigi-no-podemos-estar-de-acuerdo-con-el-saqueo-de-nuestros-recursos-424899.html
[7] https://laopinionaustral.com.ar/argentina/aoma-se-expreso-contra-el-rigi-no-podemos-estar-de-acuerdo-con-el-saqueo-de-nuestros-recursos-424899.html
