Argentina in brief

The main indicators of the Argentine plastics processing industry - summarized in the yearly report recently released by the Argentine Chamber of the Plastics Industry (CAIP) - reflect slow but steady recovery.
Some 2,750 companies, most of them small and located in the province of Buenos Aires and providing work to 35,000 employees, produced more than 1.6 million tons of semi-finished and finished products in 2010, a 12% increase with respect to 2009. One tenth of the total was exported (+4%), mainly to Mercosur countries.
Local production of polymers decreased slightly with excess demand covered by imports.
Italy is traditionally Argentina's number one supplier of plastics and rubber machinery: in 2010 sales exceeded 31 million euros (a considerable portion was represented by extruders and flexographic printing machines), returning to pre-crisis levels.