The province of Santa Fe will once again be the hub of national production. On Thursday 29 October, the conference rooms at La Fluvial in Rosario will host the first Business Roundtable linked to the Incentive Scheme for Major Investments (RIGI), an event organised jointly by the National Ministry of Economy and the Government of the Province of Santa Fe, through the Ministry of Productive Development. The initiative will bring together 28 investor groups with the heads of companies supplying capital goods, inputs and technical services, with the aim of integrating Santa Fe’s installed capacity into approved and pending investment plans, with a priority focus on large-scale mining, industrial development and heavy infrastructure.
“The choice of Santa Fe as the starting point for these rounds confirms our province’s importance. We have the metalworking capacity, the logistical capabilities and the technology to meet the demands of international projects. The commitment of the administration led by Maximiliano Pullaro is that major investments will translate into active workshops, increased production and genuine employment for the people of Santa Fe,” said the Minister for Production, Gustavo Puccini, adding: “There is also explicit recognition by the national authorities of the work carried out by the Santa Fe Province Gas, Oil and Mining Committee as a strategic forum for public-private coordination and the ongoing development of its value chains associated with these sectors.”
Santa Fe Business Forum as a starting point
The organisation of this trade summit represents the fulfilment of the commitment made during the Santa Fe Business Forum (SFBF). At this major international gathering organised by the Province of Santa Fe, Puccini and the National Secretary for Production Coordination, Pablo Lavigne, announced plans to work together to bring together, amongst others, the leaders of major RIGI investments with the network of local suppliers in the province. The initiative builds on the agenda pursued by the Santa Fe administration through platforms for productive collaboration – which bring together more than 350 firms specialising in engineering, boilermaking, machining and assembly – and the strategic integration agreements signed with the provinces that make up the Lithium Roundtable and the Copper Roundtable.
In this regard, Puccini emphasised: “Development does not happen by itself; it requires coordination, state involvement and political will. We raised this during the SFBF alongside the national government: the aim is to bring the two ends of the chain closer together, eliminate intermediaries and break down inequalities. Santa Fe has no mineral deposits, but it has the factories, the engineering expertise and the know-how to supply them. This round is the practical step to ensure that purchase orders for the country’s most ambitious projects remain within workshops in Santa Fe”.
The initiative aims to boost the indicators already recorded by the scheme at federal level, where 86 per cent of expenditure is channelled through companies based in the country and more than 1,200 domestic suppliers form part of the supply chain for goods, works and technical inputs. The aim is to direct this volume straight to the industrial plants, manufacturing parks and service companies based in the province of Santa Fe.
In addition to the B2B business roundtables, the event will feature technical presentations on tender specifications and a forum for academic and technological collaboration to support local companies in bringing their operations into line with international standards. “We want our companies to compete at the highest level. The harmonisation of standards and technical compliance are the essential bridge enabling a workshop currently operating in the south or centre of Santa Fe to supply a copper project in the mountains, a major industrial development or a strategic infrastructure project anywhere in the country,” concluded officials from the Ministry of Production.
The event is aimed at manufacturers of capital goods, metalworking firms, logistics operators, engineering companies, construction firms and providers of specialised services, who can register via the official website www.argentina.gob.ar/rondasrigi.
