This Monday, September 26, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) participated in the discussion workshop on the guidelines for the productive transformation of the province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands in Argentina, within the framework of the project “Productive development and spatial heterogeneity in Latin America: institutions and development of capacities in the programming and implementation of regional productive policies”, coordinated by ECLAC, together with the Ministry of Production and Environment of the province of Tierra del Fuego A. e IAS, the SME Undersecretary of the Nation, with the support and financing of the European Union.
The activity was attended by Martín Abeles, director of the ECLAC Office in Buenos Aires, and was led by the Minister of Production and Environment of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands, Sonia Castiglione, in addition to the participation of ECLAC officials in Buenos Aires, representatives of the provincial government and private sector companies.
The purpose of this meeting was to discuss and validate, with references from the territory, the results of the work carried out in this province, based on a series of interviews with public and private representatives of different productive sectors. From this, and from pre-existing studies, a first proposal was prepared, validated and commented on in this workshop held in Ushuaia, and which will allow suggestions to be incorporated into the strategy of activities to promote consensus on a common agenda for productive transformation in this territory. .
During the activity, the broad participation in this validation table was highlighted, in addition to the joint work and common vision between the different strategic actors involved. In this way, it is expected that the work that has been done to strengthen the productive efficiency of the traditional sectors will grant them diversification and great potential, while it is hoped that the emerging sectors will be strengthened to take advantage of their existing capacities.
By way of description, in this province there are traditional strategic sectors related to primary activities that must be strengthened, such as cattle and meat production, fishing and aquaculture, and forest-industrial and peat activities, activities that can be further diversified and that generate employment on the island such as the electronics and tourism, hydrocarbon and petrochemical industries and emerging sectors such as software and computer services, audiovisual, the knowledge economy, quality food and logistics, which is a transversal sector for the entire provincial structure.
In this context, the view of the ministerial management of this province has been proposed to reinforce the work with the primary sectors (fishing, agriculture, livestock, etc.), and generate capacities in the State to improve services in these sectors. On the other hand, with other activities, the national government has understood the need of the territory to continue having the industrial promotion regime that became a tool for the development of the territory.
One of the main challenges of this province is to coordinate the environmental perspective with the productive one, to establish clear regulations and rules, as well as to generate contexts that provide security to the private sector, so that it can work with a differentiated value added. On the other hand, it is necessary to think of actions that are conceived within a management in consensus with different sectors, listening to the territory and turning over the actions that are needed in different sectors to develop and make it transcend management.
From this workshop and validation table between territorial actors involved in the productive transformation of this province, modifications will be made to the document presented to obtain a final version and from there to strengthen the lines of work in progress to take advantage of the opportunities of this territory and face the main challenges of productive development.
