This info is a little long but..... Argentina: The RIGI, a mining conference and copper news
Away from the headline grabbing President Milei, his seemingly endless round of photo
opportunities and the near-univerally positive coverage he gets in English language press,
there’s a lot of politicking going in Argenitna these days. The main event isn’t the headline
inflation numbers or whether the country can get more money out of the IMF, but the debate
over the so-called “Pacts of May”, Milei’s latest initiative to get a package of deep reforms
through Congress that for a while looked like sticking to schedule, but after pushback from the
Senate is now expected to arrive in some shape of form in “June or July” (in Argentine Spanish,
that translates as “July at the earliest”.
This is of direct concern to us, because one of the major sticking points in the reform package
is the “Rgimen de Incentivo a las Grandes Inversiones” (Regimen of Incentives to Large-Scale
Investors) known to the world as RIGI. This project would bring significant tax breaks and other
advantages to any company investing more than U$200m into a project in the country, no
duties on imports of capital goods, as well as access to preferential exchange rates to the Peso.
The law is aimed at the agro, infrastructure, oil & gas, energy, technology and mining sectors
and with a range of tax breaks and benefits, it goes without saying that the mining lobby is
pushing hard for its passage. However, both left wing groups and small/medium sized
businesses strongly oppose the measures and the bill is now stalled in the upper house
(Senate) until further notice, which means that if it gets through there’s going to have to be
some modifications.
Away from the national scene and moving to specifics about mining, this coming Tuesday 21st
May to Thursday May 23rd sees the 10th edition of the "San Juan International Mining Expo",
organized by the mining media channel Panorama Minero and arguably the biggest event in
Argentina’s annual mining calendar. It’s held in the mining flagship province of San Juan, is
expected to being in around 15,000 attendees from the country and the outside world and
usefully (also unusually, I discovered it yesterday) for those on the outside looking in the event
even has an English language version of its web page. So find that here (17).
The year’s event will have more eyes on it than usual, with the national government of Javier
Milei putting special emphasis on the conference and among other things, it will feature the first
public speech from the new national Mining Secretary, Luis Lucero. However, the main event is
likely to be “The Copper Working Group Agreement” (Acuerdo por la Mesa del Cobre) which is
set to bring together six provincial governors for an official signing ceremony to promote the
development of copper mining projects in the country. Those governors are; host Marcelo
Orrego of San Juan, Ral Jalil of Catamarca, Alfredo Cornejo of Mendoza, Gustavo Senz of
Salta and Carlos Sadir of Jujuy. Expect reports of this meeting and signing ceremony to make
sector headlines in the week to come, we’ll watch for reaction and report back next weekend.