Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2668 actions· ✨ 89 recent

Published in the Boletín Oficial on 29 July 2025 and effective the following day, Decreto 513/2025 replaces Annexes I, II, and III of Decreto 557/2023, which govern Argentina's exceptions to the MERCOSUR Common External Tariff (AEC). The decree cuts the extrazone import duty on 27 capital-goods tariff lines — machinery, tools, and industrial equipment previously taxed at 20-35% — to a uniform 12.6%, aiming to lower input costs for domestic manufacturers and encourage technology adoption. Two NCM positions (2934.99.22 and 8450.20.20, covering certain chemical inputs and washing machines) receive a 60-day transitional carve-out preserving the prior tariff treatment for goods already in transit or in customs primary zones at the decree's effective date.

On 27 June 2024 the Argentine Congress passed Law 27.742, the "Ley de Bases y Puntos de Partida para la Libertad de los Argentinos" ("Ley Bases"), the flagship economic reform of the Milei administration. The law was published in the Boletín Oficial on 8 July 2024 and Title VII established the Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones (RIGI) — a promotional regime designed to attract large-scale capex into mining, energy, oil & gas, LNG, steel, forestry, tourism, infrastructure, and technology. Implementing Decree 749/2024 was issued on 23 August 2024 and the regime became fully operational with Resolution 1074/2024 on 22 October 2024. RIGI offers single-project vehicles ("VPUs") that commit at least USD 200M (with sector-specific thresholds rising to USD 600M and up to USD 2B for long-term "strategic export" projects) a 30-year regulatory, tax, customs and foreign-exchange stability guarantee. Headline benefits include a reduced 25% corporate income tax (vs. 35% standard), accelerated depreciation, full deductibility of inflation adjustments, an import-duty exemption on capital goods and inputs, a phased relaxation of central-bank obligations to repatriate and convert export proceeds (20% free after year one, 40% after year two, 100% after year three), and reduced dividend withholding tax. Disputes are subject to international arbitration under ICSID or UNCITRAL rules. As of mid-2025, RIGI's project pipeline reached USD 33.9B in submitted applications, of which roughly USD 15.7B (46.5%) had been approved across nine projects spanning steel (Sidersa), energy/LNG (PAE Southern Energy, YPF Argentina LNG), three mining projects, and infrastructure. The flagship approval was Rio Tinto's USD 2.5B Rincón battery-grade lithium carbonate plant in Salta (initial 53,000 t/yr, scaling to 60,000 t/yr by 2028) — the first mining project approved under the regime, on 21 May 2025. Strategically, RIGI is Argentina's bid to compete with Chile's lithium framework and Brazil's industrial policies for upstream-critical-minerals capex. Combined with the lifting of Argentina's FX controls (cepo cambiario) in April 2025 it sharply re-rates the country's project-economics math for multinationals — particularly in the Lithium Triangle, the Vaca Muerta shale, and pipeline/LNG infrastructure. Whether the 30-year stability guarantee survives a future change of government is the dominant political-risk overhang on the regime.