PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2013

EDITOUR REPORTS 12 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 10/13 www.petpla.net Get in touch with... economy & infrastructure As part of our Go With The Flow Tour through South America we visited the markets of Chile and Argentina. Our report starts with Chile. If we take the Latin American market as a whole, it is safe to state that Chile is undoubt- edly one of the leading economies of the continent. Chile boasts the largest deposits of copper in the world, produc- ing 27% of world requirements+ ; copper accounts for 20% of the country’s GDP and for 60% of its exports. Taking the per capita income in USD as a base, Chile is the richest country in South America. Chile is also a major export- ing nation and its export quota is comparable with that of Germany. Between the end of the 1980s and the 1990s it achieved above-average high growth rates. The consist- ent upward trend, however, finally collapsed into recession in 1997/1998, intensified by the crises in Asia and Brazil. By 1999, copper prices had begun to increase again, and by 2000, the economy was once more on a stable footing. Copper, though dominant, is not Chile’s only resource: fruit, salmon, wine, wood, paper and methanol make up a sub- stantial proportion of the country’s exports. The country has other noteworthy advantages. According to studies carried out by Transparency International, Chile is now largely free of corruption and, in 2005, according to the International Finance Corporation, it came first in the most enterprise-friendly countries in South America. Together with the USA, the European Union is an important trading partner of Chile. In 2012 State President Sebastián Pinera proclaimed 2013 to be the “year of innovation”. Experts are forecasting high levels of investment in high-tech products as a result of this initiative. In the machinery and plant seg- ment in particular, Chile is looking to take advantage of the know-how of foreign suppliers. Geographically, Chile is one of the most fascinating countries in the world. It is a strip of land, 4,275kms long traversing 39 degrees of latitude, with an average width of some 180 km, which snakes its way along the west coast of the Pacific. With the Pacific ocean to the west and the Andes (which can rise to an altitude of just under 7,000m) to the east, Chile enjoys a diverse climate, from the arid wastes of the Atacama desert in the north west to the bitter cold of Patagonia in the south, a region still known as “the ends of the earth”. With temperatures varying by as much as 50°C, it is no surprise that machinery manufacturers face challenging times in supplying machinery to the mate- rials producing sector. Chile shares its northern border with Peru, and in the north east with Argentina. The Atlantic lies to the south east. The infrastructure, and in particular the poor road network , presents a serious challenge as far as the trans- port of goods is concerned. Of the 80,000km of roads in the country, only a mere 20% is metalled. To alleviate the situation, work began in 1976 to construct a high- way, known as the Carretera Austral 1976, to link Puerto Montt, in the north of the country, with Villa O’Higgins in the sparsely populated southern region. The final 100km of the total 1,240km of the highway, was finally completed in 2000. Access to the south is still difficult, involving a number of ferries, which operate only during two months of the year. The most practical way to the south is via Argentina. Generally, sea and air are the preferred options for transporting goods and materials, as we heard time and time again during our discussions with Chilean compa- nies. Unsurprisingly our contacts were quick to point out Lima Santiago La Paz Buenos Aires Montevideo Progresso São José dos Pinhais São Paulo Rio de Janeiro Lindóia Santa Cruz Sucre Quilmes Pilar Jaú Concepción Santa Fe Barueri Jundiai Sorocaba Amparoa Limeira Chile and Argentina by Kay Barton (formerly Krüger)