Construction in Argentina faces ‘unprecedented crisis’

Buenos Aires, Argentina

At the institution’s recent Annual Convention, Weiss detailed the severe impacts of this situation on the employment and survival of construction companies.

“The sector is going through a very serious economic situation, as a result of the total paralysis, with some exceptions, of national public works that has severely affected employment and has endangered the very continuity of the companies,” he said.

In fact, according to the leader, there are currently some 3,500 national public works paralyzed, many of which have not received payments since last November, causing a drop of 100,000 direct jobs.

Weiss underlined the consequences of this stoppage, not only in terms of employment, but also regarding the state of the existing infrastructure.

“The aforementioned paralysis situation will have an immediate effect on the state and safety of use of the existing infrastructure. It is a huge waste of money not to preserve what exists. Recovering it will be much more expensive than what maintenance costs in a timely manner,” he warned.

The president of CAMARCO highlighted the urgent need to complete the works in progress to avoid their deterioration and the waste of what has already been invested.

“It is essential to complete the works in progress, avoiding their deterioration and the waste of what has already been invested; and restart the maintenance tasks of the existing infrastructure, to avoid late – more costly – recoveries and to avoid dangers to safety and damage to the productive activity affected by the poor state or operation of the service,” he added.