A delegation of more than 70 argentine business leaders travelled with President Mauricio Macri in his first official visit to Germany on July 5th and 6th. The main objective of the visit was to promote trade, business opportunities, and investment between Argentina and Germany. This first presidential visit to Germany also focused on strengthening bilateral relations and deepening the political dialogue between their governments.
The Argentine business delegation included representatives of various key sectors including the food and beverage, health, automotive, logistics, banking, energy, communications, metal, textile and mining industries.
The activities during the visit focused on promoting joint ventures; on bringing together buyers and sellers of different products and services; on creating production and distribution partnerships, attracting investors, finding clients for consulting and training businesses, and promoting academic partnerships between research centres and universities for the development of joint activities.
On July 5th a seminar was held in Hamburg focussing on investment opportunities in the renewable energy and transport infrastructure sectors. Further investment and trade opportunities in the more traditional agribusiness sector in Argentina were also presented.
The following day, an Argentine-German Economic Forum was held in Berlin. More than 250 local business leaders interested in creating or strengthening ties with Argentina attended. At the Forum the Argentine delegation presented various investment and business opportunities and emphasized Argentina’s commitment to maintain legal certainty and funding conditions for foreign investors.
The business opportunities directed at attracting new Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), are currently favoured by the clear competitive advantages offered by Argentina’s present circumstances. The goal is to increase and diversify the total share of German FDI in Argentina’s economy (USD 3.709 billion in 2014). Currently, German companies’ investment in Argentina is concentrated in the automotive, service, plastic and chemical, petroleum, machinery, and equipment industries.
The trade mission to the Federal Republic of Germany takes place in the context of a new foreign economic policy that looks to reintegrate Argentina in the global economy, fuelling domestic economic growth in order to improve living conditions for all argentines.