Industrial policy provides safeguards analysis

A ‘split’ or creation of tariff subheadings to prevent the affectation of entrepreneurs´s competitiveness in the international market is affected is one of the measures of the industrial policy of Ecuador announced yesterday by the Economic Front of the government to the productive trade associations in the country.

During the event which was held in Guayaquil, financing lines from multilateral agencies to the private sector were also discussed.

Santiago Leon, Minister of Industry and Productivity (Mipro), recognized that there are gaps and that they seek to strengthen incentives, foreign trade, finance and human talent with the proposal.

As an example, he mentioned that they seek to generate more bilateral investment agreements, optimize agreements for the introduction of manufactured products and review the list of safeguards.

“We are doing the splitting of subheadings. This is the requirement of the sector because it affects its production process. Maybe these subheadings include a product that is part of the production process and we have not seen it. We have to be clear about which subheading we want to levy and which not,” he said.

However, for Francisco Alarcon, president of the Chamber of Industries of Guayaquil, safeguards affect the sector, and if the government wants to “boost” them, these should be completely eliminated and not in groups.

He added that it is important that the Mipro talks about competitiveness, provided it is “translated” into lower production costs and access to first world markets.