Government plans to review the list of products affected by safeguards

On March 6 a document through which a safeguard BOP is set to 2961 tariff items was issued. The surcharge established is between 5% and 45%. Some unions criticize the inclusion of raw material needed for their activities and requested a revision of the list.

The Association of Telecommunications Companies (Asetel for its Spanish acronym) indicated that safeguards will have an effect of an increase in mobile telephony, data, Internet and pay TV, among others.To provide these services, they say, products such as switches, connectors, tools, transmitters, cable modem and items with a 45% surcharge as batteries, decoders, etc. are required.

In the textile sector, meanwhile, surcharges of 5% were included to inputs like threads. Milton Altamirano, head of the Association of Textile Tailoring, said that this product is one of the most widely used. Of total inputs used by this sector, 70% comes from abroad. However, he indicates that they will seek for national suppliers. Meanwhile, in the metalworking sector it will be asked to analyze products where national production is lacking or deficient, such as cables.

Diego Aulestia, Minister of Foreign Trade, said on this that “in a universe of near to 2900 products, of course, we would have slipped a mistake and we can make adjustments. In fact there are some products that are raw materials for certain industries and in the coming days we will do some adjustment.”