Siderar proposes Mercosur rethink

Argentine flat steel maker Siderar vice president, Daniel Novegil, has proposed the country takes a serious look at the economic and social consequences that membership of local free trade area Mercosur has brought in the last 14 years. "We have to renegotiate to avoid unfair competition," the executive was reported as saying by local daily Infobae at the 44th Congress of the Latin American Iron and Steel Institute (Ilafa) held in Rio de Janeiro this week. According to Novegil, more jobs have been lost than gained in Argentina as a result of the country's memberhip of Mercosur. Trade integration between Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina has provoked social and economic costs and should be revised. The trade pact has negatively affected sectors such as metal fabrication, auto parts, and agricultural machinery, Novegil was quoted as saying. But Novegil stressed that Mercosur should not be dissolved and said it was "perfectly compatible" with a bilateral steel accord with the US, which would be in the interests of the domestic steel industry. "The US market is an interesting opportunity which could help us," he was reported as saying. Buenos Aires-based Siderar is Argentina's largest integrated steelmaker with installed capacity of 2.2Mt/y. It is controlled by the Techint group.