ARGENTINA – Entrepreneurs and representatives of the wood sector, grouped in the 28 chambers of the country that make up FAIMA (Argentine Federation of Timber and Related Industries) met to discuss the current situation of the sector at the 138th Wood Congress: “Forest industry in a rigid macro economy”, held on June 1 and 2 in San Francisco, Córdoba. In this scenario, concern was expressed about the slowdown in economic recovery and the hardening of macro conditions.

“The pressure on our costs and profitability already exerted the increases in the rates of services, the component linked to transportation and competition with imported products, it is expected that the second half of the year will show a slowdown in the economic recovery that had been taking place in 2017,” said Pedro Reyna, President of FAIMA, at the opening of the Congress, which also included the Mayor of the city of San Francisco, Ignacio García Aresca; the National Director of Forest Industry, Nicolás Laharrague and other key industry leaders.

Reyna also added: “Our sector is eminently an internist market and our sales depend directly on the income of consumers. In this sense, the slowdown in the recovery of salary levels given a higher inflation than originally planned for this year, impacts our sales forecasts”. And noted that “the wood and furniture sector has been reporting low levels of profitability for the last three years, which in this context is expected to continue downward according to the surveys of our FAIMA Observatory and of the chambers in our network.”