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Federal Judge Miguel Vaca Narvaja granted an injunction
requested by the Assembly of Small and Medium Entrepreneurs Civil
Association (APYME) in Córdoba (second largest
State/Province of Argentina) to be exempt from the hikes issued by
President Mauricio Macri's Cambiemos administration and
implemented by Energy Minister Juan José Aranguren.
The decision applies to the whole country because in an earlier
decision the judge established that protections are of collective
and national nature.
The decision orders ENARGAS (national agency regulator) to draw
back all increased tariffs rates for natural gas for SMEs to March
31 levels and keep them at such level until December 27.
The Judge also decided that energy corporations should reimburse
SMEs all payments made under the increased natural gas tariffs
rates, ordering a payment of invoices due in four monthly, equal
and consecutive instalments, without interest or surcharges.
Consumers have already benefited from a prior injunction that
obliged the Government to call for hearings that ended up with a
proposal to increase only 203 percent the tariff price instead of
400 percent as initially announced. SMEs were not covered by this
decision.
The Judge's considerations were similar to previous rulings
for residential users in the sense that the increases of 500
percent for businesses was fixed unilaterally by the State without
prior public consultation as mandated by law. The new decision
applies to small and medium businesses, traders, service providers,
agricultural producers, middle class or self-employed
professionals. The Government is appealing the decision.
The decision came just weeks after San Martín Federal
Judge Martina Isabel Forns blocked all electricity hikes issued by
Aranguren and the energy ministry along similar lines to those
applying to natural gas. In this case, the injunction was struck
down by a subsequent Supreme Court ruling which handed a victory to
Macri's government but only due to formal objections to the
original complaint on legitimation grounds, as the petition was
filed by politicians that could not invoke the representation of
the consumers.
Similarly to the natural gas hearings, the Government announced
that it will hold public consultations within one month's time
as from October 28 day in which the decision was rendered.
INDEC REPORTED A HEALTHY TRADE SURPLUS
Greater exports and a reduction in imports to Argentina resulted
in a trade surplus of US$ 705 million in August according to the
Indec statistics bureau. In the same month last year the country
ran a trade deficit of US$ 301 million.
The statistics bureau reported that exports worth US$5.752
billion were sold in August, a 12 percent increase in a
year-on-year comparison, and that imports were down by 7.1 percent
for a total of US$5.047 billion. The decrease was explained by a
6.7 percent increase in the volume of trade that was paired with a
13 percent reduction in prices.
While primary goods lead the way in August, agricultural exports
actually fell by some 2.2 percent despite a 12 percent increase in
the exports of maize to Brazil. Energy and fuel exports went up by
8.6 percent while the value of exported industrial goods inched up
by 0.8 percent in comparison to 2015.
THE ECONOMY SHRANK 5.9% IN JULY
The economy registered the largest contraction in almost 14
years in July, shrinking by 5.9 percent when compared with the same
month last year. INDEC statistics show lower consumer demand and
industrial production (with manufacturing output down 7.9 percent)
as factors in the downturn.
July was also 0.4 percent down from June (a contraction of -4.7
percent) with this year so far registering a 2.3 percent decline
when measured against the first seven months of 2015.
Construction was down 23.1 percent from July last year and
showing 2016 thus far having 14.1 percent less building activity
than the first seven months of last year. The sharpest industrial
declines were in raw steel (-17 percent), the auto industry (-12
percent with Brazil still in a slump) and mineral-based building
materials (-11.6 percent).
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