Public procurement for the development of the national industry

By Estudio Chaloupka

Argentina’s government put into effect the Buy Argentine Law, approved on April 2018 by the Senate with the aim of using public procurement for the development of the national industry.

"For the first time in history we will establish a powerful policy focused on buying national products, improving our industry’s productive capacities and enhancing its exports”, said Francisco Cabrera, Minister of Production. "It is a policy implemented in all industrialized countries that seeks to increase the production of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which represent a huge percentage of all businesses”, added Sergio Drucaroff, Deputy Secretary of Public Procurement and Supplier Development.
Public procurement represents in Argentina more than 5 percent of its GDP and 2.5 percent of total employment. During the next 8 years the National Public Administration

is expected to invest USD 200 million in several sectors such as infrastructure, energy, health, telecommunications, industrial goods, services and technology, deepening existing benefits to local companies and creating new ones on the scope of application, preference regime and cooperation agreements, among other matters.

For the drafting of the project, the government was advised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and followed the guidelines of model countries in this type of measures such as Israel, United States, Mexico and Brazil.