Macri’s 'Plan Belgrano': Development or Thirst for Lithium?

Macri’s 'Plan Belgrano': Development or Thirst for Lithium?


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President Mauricio Macri seeks to develop infrastructure nearby Argentina's lithium reserves.

Published 11 May 2016
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What seems to be an ambitious development plan could end up in a natural resources giveaway.


The rise of businessman Mauricio Macri to the presidency in Argentina inaugurated a new set of pro-business policies such as currency devaluation, tax reductions and a rise in the interests rate established by the central bank, all of which were oriented at favoring the agro-business exporters and the financial sectors of the country. At the same time, all of them implied what heterodox economists define as the withdrawal of state intervention in the economy, one of the classic ingredients of neoliberal recipes.

But there is one of the policies carried out by the Macri administration that was based on increasing government presence in several provinces: the Belgrano Plan. Named after Manuel Belgrano, one of the most prestigious generals who fought Argentina’s independence wars, the basic idea is to develop infrastructure in the northern region of the country.

“The north gave and keeps giving a lot to Argentina. What has Argentina given in return? Not much. Much less of what the north and its people deserve,” says President Macri on his website, in which there is a special section about the Belgrano Plan. According to the site, the plan involves building housing projects for 250,000 families, tax benefits for companies that agree to base their operations in the northern provinces, a special program of investments in infrastructure for 16 billion dollars in ten years terms, and “quick intervention in areas of extreme poverty.”

While the northern region of the country, and specially the northwestern province of Jujuy, has appeared in the news dozens of times under Macri’s presidency, it was not due to advances in infrastructure brought by the Belgrano Plan, but for the incarceration of indigenous leader Milagro Sala. Two separate topics that analysts agree are quite related if they are looked through the right scope.

More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Macris-Plan-Belgrano-Development-or-Thirst-for-Lithium--20160511-0050.html