“The market was growing very fast in all categories and price points, and not only for imports of bicycles but also for local bikes-those assembled in Argentina with imported parts,” Ferreyra said.įerreyra is optimistic that the government will do something to soften the rules by Christmas, noting that the current unavailability of toys and other traditional holiday gifts will put pressure to loosen its trade policies. Heightening the impact is last year’s record sales year, topping the previous few years of very strong growth in the market. But the black market business is significant,” he added. “But this has been reduced in the last month due to the limits on foreign purchases by credit card payment. “The only bikes to enter the country are those imported by people traveling to neighboring countries, and people have been bringing in products though online purchases,” said ASI’s Zarzur. So you can have almost everything to complete a bike but you don’t have bars or saddles,” said Ferreyra.Īrgentine bike consumers are finding other ways to get the latest bikes and parts, and a bicycle black market is growing. Saddles, seatposts, bars, stems, spokes and other components have quotas. But production of assembled-in-Argentina bikes also has ground to a halt.
Argentina responded by detailing the manner in which many signatories wage unfair trade practices against its exports, so the dispute continues.Īrgentina has a domestic bicycle assembly business but not large-scale bicycle manufacturing. Trade with Argentina is so untenable that 14 World Trade Organization members, including Australia, the European Union, Japan, Taiwan and the U.S., drafted a letter in August requesting that Argentina eliminate its import restrictions. But now even that is difficult, and the trade-balance requirement is crippling importers. Department of Commerce reported that some companies began exporting olive oil and wine from Argentina to build up export credits so they could continue importing hard goods. To import one dollar of goods they need to export one dollar.
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“So in order to obtain a license to import goods, they must show an increase in exports of the same dollar value of Argentina-originating goods. Commercial Service’s commercial specialist in the U.S. “Companies report that they have been told that their import license application will not be approved unless the company agrees to trade-balance requirements established by the Secretary of Domestic Trade,” said Josette Fiore, U.S. Importers working in these product categories would have to renew their import license for each container of goods they brought in. Last year Argentina drafted new legislation requiring import licenses for certain product categories like bicycles, motorcycles and sporting goods to be issued non-automatically. What complicates the picture further for importers-and the situation affects imports of everything from cars to toys and food-is that many of the “rules” in place are not written into law.
The customs regulations and restrictions make it practically impossible to import bikes or parts,” said Zarzur, ASI’s Argentinean importer. “The quantity of imports has fallen to such a point that we will not have products for the 2013 model year. The impact on our business is substantial,” said Fernando Ferreyra, Specialized Bicycle Components Argentina’s general manager.Īdvanced Sports International’s Camel Zarzur says that each day the new restrictions remain in place makes his business harder to keep afloat. “Since February no one is importing complete bikes, with a few exceptions. BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (BRAIN) - The Grinch stole Argentina’s bike market this year, but the industry hopes the spirit of Christmas softens the government’s stance and import laws are softened in time for the holidays, the traditional start of the Argentine bike season.Īrgentina implemented new import requirements in February that virtually shut down all imports of bikes, as well as many other consumer products.
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