Argentina to nationalize soy giant Vicentin

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Argentina is the third exporter of soybeans but above all the first exporter of soybean oil for cooking and soybean meal for farms all over the world. REUTERS / Nicolas Misculin

By: Claire Fages Follow

The announcement is controversial in Argentina. The government wants to nationalize the giant soybean and biodiesel Vicentin, on the verge of bankruptcy.

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The company is emblematic of Argentina and, like it ... in default. Vicentin, the soy giant, founded in 1929, is in the process of being nationalized. President Alberto Fernandez announced it himself earlier this week on television. “  I want to reassure all the employees of the company who will keep their jobs, but also the 2,600 farmers who will be able to count on it to buy, process and export their (soybean) seeds.  "

Vicente, pioneer of Argentine biodiesel exports…

Argentina is the third exporter of soybeans but above all the first exporter of soybean oil for cooking and soybean meal for farms all over the world. It is also one of the main suppliers of biodiesel, of which Vicentin inaugurated exports in 2007. An industry which brought in $ 12 billion last year, but which is in crisis.

… An industry paralyzed by the coronavirus

The coronavirus pandemic has put an abrupt end to exports of biodiesel to Europe when the United States had already condemned its market since 2017, with anti-dumping taxes. Processing into oil and oilcake suffered from a poor soybean harvest (-10% to less than 50 million tonnes) due to the prolonged drought in January. A drought which also caused the level of the Parana river to drop, which made the transportation of products difficult on this major axis of trade in Argentina.

Argentine soybean meal loses market share in Europe

Export taxes, already 30%, have been increased to 33% since the arrival of President Fernandez. Argentina continues to lose market share in Europe, the world's leading import region for soybean meal. Europe, however, is gradually resuming its purchases, becoming more flexible, but to the benefit of the Brazilian competitor.

$ 12 billion in exports again last year

By getting their hands on the giant soybean Vicentin, without having previously warned its Swiss partner Glencore, within Renova, the number one in Argentine biodiesel, the government of Alberto Fernandez scandalized the opposition and the business circles, which evoke a Venezuelan scenario.

The authorities of Buenos Aires, for their part, hope to preserve a precious contribution in foreign currency, while the country sees investors fleeing and that it had to suspend at the beginning of April, in full containment, the payment of its 10 billion dollars in debt .

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