Production and competitiveness are the axes of the discussion in the Congress of the Venezuelan Confederation of Industrialists, Conindustria, which is meeting today in Caracas. The concretion of the theme is already a sample of an attitude that bets for realism, for the search for solutions, for the activation of capacities and for a vision focused on growth factors and opportunities.
Conindustria rightly laments that 70% of its installed capacity is now idle. The data adds to all that information that portrays the image of a country hit on all fronts. From its particular perspective, the industrial sector recognizes the origin and nature of its difficulties in factors such as uncontrolled and dollarized inflation, low national demand, lack of financing, precariousness in public services, excessive fiscal and parafiscal taxes, unfair competition with imports. duty-free imported products. Parafiscal taxes, originally designed for social strengthening and support for the technological and educational sectors, have ceased to meet their objectives. Centralization has diverted that income to purposes for which it was not intended. Lost their objective, however, they remain simply as tax burdens, generating greater weight for companies and affecting their productivity.
In this field, that of fiscal commitments, and in others such as stimulus, opening up opportunities, legal updating, the realistic position of the industrial sector should facilitate spaces for productive and honest dialogue with the authorities. Conindustria has opened up to this position, with the concern of ensuring the effectiveness of this dialogue, in order to obtain real results, not just calls, conventional meetings or simple paper agreements. Until now, there has been a manifestation of interest, but little efficiency, despite the pronouncements of the industrial sector such as the repeated demand to advance in the reform of the Tax Harmonization Law and achieve a reduction in the Tax on Large Financial Transactions, a tax that further reduces the possibilities of competitiveness of the sector. Aware that the weakness of the industrial sector has a negative impact on national production, job creation and the recovery of the purchasing sector, the managers of Conindustria and society hope that this dialogue will manifest itself in the opening of spaces for productivity and competitiveness, and in the implementation of adequate economic policies to recover growth.
The recovery of the Venezuelan economy requires a dynamic, up-to-date industrial sector, willing to continue working, as some of its executives have stated, to achieve an optimal level of production that allows not only recovering the equilibrium point but also beginning to invest in new machinery and extension. The 40 chambers and associations that make up Conindustria represent 80% of the Venezuelan manufacturing sector, but they also represent hope for Venezuela’s economic recovery. Working in this line would be, ultimately, fulfilling the mission of the institution, translated into the promotion of appropriate public policies that lead to the reactivation of industrial production and the restitution of the rights of economic freedom.
A look inside the industrial sector would show, among other factors, the difficulty to achieve an effective technological update, in a world in which digital has taken over all the spaces and has determined, on the one hand, the dimension of the changes and, on the other, on the other, the key to productivity and competition. The decision to advance in productivity and competitiveness necessarily goes through an accelerated process of technological updating, review of processes and intelligent but daring mastery of digital tools, which today distinguish the winners from the laggards. Conindustria’s response today is production and competitiveness, with all that these purposes imply.
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