PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2013

EDITOURS REPORTS 14 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 10/13 www.petpla.net bright side, and her words lift my spir- its. We need to look ahead, no point in moping. With no Editourmobil, we have to make alternative arrangements for our first appointment next day with CSD bottlers Embosur in Concepcion. The only option is to take the plane. Embosur bottles, amongst other things, one of the best known beverages in the country, the cel- ebrated “Primeros” which they supply to some of the major discount chains. After an enlightening discussion, we have to rush off to the airport to catch our flight. The election of the new pope is underway and Chiraz and I watch with interest the live broadcast of the event. Our programme for the next few days is to fly to Buenos Aires, leaving the Editourmobil with Iveco in Santiago. Picking up the rest of our luggage from the vehicle, we head off to the airport. Shortly before midnight we arrive at our hotel in Buenos Aires. It is Saturday, the weekend it might be, but there is no rest for the wicked. We still have a lot of work to do. Our first impression of the city is Wow! this is really great! But we are already thinking of the week ahead: some interesting appointments in the offing. The first few days in the city simply fly by. Heidelberg’s meticulous original planning goes by the board, we need to start again from scratch. We can do the first appointments by taxi, and in the meantime, HQ will email me the revised programme. Refres Now, bottler of one of this country’s most famous brands “Manaus”, will be followed by Bericap, then PET recyclers Reciclar and finally Andina Empaques, the big Coca -Cola bottle- and preform manufacturer. Mean- while no news on the Iveco/Editourmobil front. Let’s turn instead to Refres Now. The major bottler of the “Manaos” own brand happily combines, on its eight bot- tling lines, a total daily production of around 3m litres with Coca -Cola and Pepsi. We then move on to Bericap, based in Pilar, whose annual production totals some 1.3 billion closures. Today, Friday, our first appointment is with the PET recyclers Reciclar. We learn how around 25 tons of PET bottles are col- lected from the streets here, cleaned, sorted and recycled into flakes. by Kay Barton between the official exchange rate and real value, some- thing which, in combination with the Mexico crisis of 1995, led to a fall in GDP of 4.6% while the unemployment rate rose to more than 18%. Corruption and the massive flight of capital to safer havens abroad exacerbated what was, to put it mildly, a chaotic situation. In 2001, the state declared bankruptcy. It was only the lifting of the currency peg in 2002 under the 17-months‘ presidency of Eduardo Duhalde and in the wake of stabili- sation programmes on the part of the IMF that put Argen- tina, economically speaking, back on course during 2003. Nevertheless, imports have to be officially approved due to the shortage of foreign exchange. Under the presidency of Néstor Kirchner between 2003 and 2007 the economic state of deregulation was termi- nated and the debt management policy revised, although his methods aroused much controversy. The result was astonishing growth rates of around 8%. This course of action has been continued by Kirchner’s successor, his wife Cristina Férnandez de Kirchner. Since 2010 infla- tion has, officially, been of the order of 10%, but experts suspect that the real rate borders on 25%. In addition to this there are high export tariffs that constitute an additional burden hampering foreign trade. The lion’s share of Argentine industry is today accounted for by the service sector. Agriculture, stock breeding and mining are also assuming important eco- nomic positions alongside the processing industries. Agri- cultural products account for a proportion of around 34% of exports, whilst the level of industrial products is about 36%. Some of the most important industrial products are plastic products, machinery, automotive parts and steel. In addition, Argentina is one of Latin America’s largest steel producers. Their main trading partners when it comes to export are the Latin American member states of Mercosur (27%), followed by the EU (17%). The geography of Argentina is similar to Chile in its diversity, and is matched by hardly any other country in South America. With a total area of 2.78 million km 2 , Argentina is the eighth largest country in the world. North- south, it stretches for a distance of 3,694km, whilst from west to east it covers a distance of 1,423km. In the north the country borders Bolivia and Paraguay, in the north-east Brazil and Uruguay, to the east and south lies the Atlantic and in the west is Chile. The topography is as breathtak- ing and spectacular as Chile’s. With the high Andes to the west and the dry savannahs of Gran Chaco to the north, as well as the highlands in the interior of the country, the Sierras Pampeanas rising to heights of up to 6,250m and the Argentinian part of Patagonia in the south, the climate covers the whole spectrum from subtropical to sub-polar with everything in-between. The overall population cur- rently stands at around 41.5 million, approximately, 12.8 million of whom live in the conurbation around the capital city of Buenos Aires plus the hinterland in the east of the country. The infrastructure situation is as varied as that of Chile. The congested urban areas are well served by rail, road and air, whilst other areas rely on coach and bus transport. For goods transport, gravel tracks and asphalted overland roads run side by side with well-constructed, dual