Grain flows to Argentine ports start to normalise: Ciara

The delivery of grains at Argentine ports is starting to normalise as the number of municipal government across Argentina still restricting the circulation of lorries transporting grain has fallen, Gustavo Idigoras, head of the local oilseed crushing and exporters chamber Ciara-CEC, told Agricensus.

According to a Ciara-CEC document, a total of 67 municipal governments in some provinces were still restricting the circulation of lorries transporting grain.

“The government is working with local governments (to solve transport issues) and we believe that the situation will continue to normalise in the coming days,” Idigoras said.

Ciara confirmed that ports in the Up-River, Quequen and Bahia Blanca had normalized the flow of grains.

However, the association said the decision by grain receivers union Urgara to work a single shift of eight hours is currently generating delays in grain loads at local ports.

Urgara had previously suspended strike action following a mandatory conciliation ordered by the Labour Ministry.

The union had sent a letter to Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez to suspend grain exports for a two weeks period to protect the health of workers due to the Covid-19 crisis.

Maritime workers union Somu is also working normally after a mandatory conciliation ordered by the government deactivated a protest action.

Somu had threatened not to provide services to those bulk carriers arriving from areas of high circulation of Covid-19 and that failed to fulfil with a 14-day mandatory quarantine period.

In related news, grain exporters injected a total of $1.065 billion into the local economy in March, down 6.9% year-on-year, due to the lower number of lorries that arrived to grain ports during the Covid-19 mandatory quarantine.