Chile Forum

This is just a quick ITYS (I told you so), in regards to Argentina. The president of Argentina submitted a law to congress to limit the sale of property to foreigners to 20% of national territory, with a 1,000 hectare limit on individual buyers. Supposedly not retroactive (soros, tompkins, so on are supposedly o.k. under this law), but then how do they determine what 20% is in Argentina (not exactly transparent from any perspective)?

Watch this one, as I bet the next shoe to drop is this turns in to a grab of foreign owned lands (sorry, sold you that land by accident, and turns out you have to give it back to the goverment). They do it every 10 years or so (one way or the other), and suckers with short-term memories still invest in that country over and over again.

Argentina aims to limit land sales
By Jude Webber in Buenos Aires
Published: April 29 2011 02:51 | Last updated: April 29 2011 02:51
Argentina, a leading food producer, wants to ensure Chinese and other foreign investors do not snap up one of its key resources: land.

Cristina Fernández, the president, this week submitted to Congress a bill “for the protection of national dominion over rural land”, seeking to limit to 20 per cent the amount owned by foreigners.

Groups such as Benetton, businessmen including Joseph Lewis of Britain and Ted Turner of the US and conservationists Doug and Kristine Tompkins own vast tracts of land.

Gonzalo Sánchez, author of Patagonia Sold, recalls in his book how Carlos Menem, president in the 1990s, invited investors to buy “surplus land” and quotes army sources as saying that 10 per cent of the country has been sold to foreigners, while 32m hectares of the best farm land is for sale to overseas investors.

“I think there’s a need for a law, though it’s a bit late – not to stop investment but to ensure that there is not exaggerated foreign control of our resources,” he says.

The bill proposes a 1,000 hectare limit on foreign ownership but will not be retroactive.

It is not just the arrival of deep-pocketed foreign businessmen buying ranches that troubles Argentina, a modern agricultural powerhouse built on 19th century immigration. It is the growing interest of Chinese investors.

Ulises Forte, a congressman and former vice-president of the Agrarian Federation farmers’ association, says Chinese investors have been seeking land in the northern province of Entre Ríos to grow rice. There are no exact figures; the bill submitted by Ms Fernández also seeks to compile a land registry.

She says Argentina is only doing what other countries have done and is not seeking to put a brake on investment. But analysts say Argentina’s unreliable official statistics and penchant for abrupt policy changes – such as the nationalisation of private pension funds in 2008 – do that already.

Slightly more informative

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/arg ... story.html

By the way, a couple of years ago at that start of the financial crisis they made it harder for foreigners to take their money out of the country. So, this has 'quick, rip off any foreigner anyway you can' written all over it.


Love this quote:

Fernandez stressed that if the proposed national registry shows that more than 20 percent of productive land is already in foreign hands, the law won’t affect the owners’ property rights “because we want to be a serious country.”

I can already hear the keyboards clicking over in Argentina as the real estate agents, lawyers, bankers start drafting their newest round of land scams based on this law.

This is the same country that confiscated private retirement accounts. If you cannot eat it or carry it out, do not buy it there. Anything that their government can seize, they will. Inflation is presently at 25%-30% annually, I'll bet it goes up rapidly. Kirschner is following in the footsteps of Chavez, who is pulling a slow Castro. These people make most other governments look honest, and that is saying something. Repeat: If you cannot eat it or carry it out, do not buy it there. Sounds like Chile's comparatively higher prices are making more sense if you get to keep what you buy....said it before, Chile is a wife, Argentina is a very naughty mistress or you-know-what if you are paying directly....

John Hyre

So where do they expect all those Chinese Investors to be able to dump all those hard-earned American Dollars??? Cause the US sure as hell doesn't want them back here. Oh, the picture of 2.6 Trillion dollars looking for a place to land...

And just for fun, let me try to count the zeros...

$2,600,000,000,000. Did I get that right?

Cause the US sure as hell doesn't want them back here.

Of course we want them here. They give us tangible things, we give them little pieces of paper that we can print many more of, of course we want that! How on earth can we inflate debt away if it's not in dollars?

John Hyre

the "them" I was referring to is the little pieces of paper.... no, we don't want them back, makes for a little crowding out of room for all those new ones.

On a brighter note, isn't the "new" and "improved" Galt's Gulch in Argentina, somewhere near Cafayette? Wouldn't that bite... So then where? "Oh, it's PANAMA!" "No wait, it's CHILE!" "No, wait again, it's PARAGUAY!" "No, you can't have our newest, bestest, most current recommendation until you renew your subscription!"

And for the small sum of $239.00, bet they end up recommending staying in the US.

We have have a few Chinese clients, none are really in to land purchases. It is a bit difficult to nail down exactly what their angle is on Chile overall, but most are looking for some type of export or import market. One thing we have seen is that they tend to be a bit more inclined towards other parts of Latin America, because they are use to swimming in a fairly strong stream of corruption and bribery. We have to keep them on a short leash in Chile when they first start out, or they will get themselves thrown in to jail. The language barrier has likely saved more than a few from doing something illegal in Chile that is considered just good manners in China. Once the Chinese settle down a bit, they seem to adapt to doing biz in Chile fairly well and play by the rules. I have not seen any significant interest in agricultural land by any Chinese however.

The obvious scam I can see coming from just the rumor of this law, are all the Argentina telling gringos that they must have an Argentina partner to own land. Kiss your money good-bye.

I have been saying for years on the forum, just because you THINK you own land in Argentina, does not mean you really own land or will continue to own it.

So far, in our business, with almost a 100% confirmed case rate, if some gringo calls us up and mentions they have a problem with an Argentina partner in Chile guaranteed there is some sort of criminal or near criminal activity involved. At some point in the course of trying to sort out the mess, we will be messaging the Rolodex trying to decide if we need to call the local prosecutor's office to file charges. Sometimes we do. The problem with Argentineans operating in Chile is that as soon as things get even a bit warm they can scurry over the boarder and be nearly completely out of reach of Chilean law (well, at least not cheaply within reach).

Also, we are fairly blunt from the start. If your problem involves an Argentinian for whatever reason, it is going to be very expensive to fix. They seem to create the most fantastically complex legal messes in Chile to cover their tracks. They are like an octopus shooting a cloud of ink to hide what they have all their tenticals sunk in to. By the time the (paper) ink fog clears sufficiently to see what they are really up to, they are long gone.

This has been in the works for awhile, the real estate shills in Argentine were running full bore when I was down there this past summer, pumping every piece of turf over 1000ha they had. I wonder how many bit and will find their deposit disappear in the 12 month process to get title transferred and payment made. They wanted 50% deposit and said the transfer would take 4-6 months which means 8-14 months. I had to take extra showers after several meetings, also I noticed not once did anyone offer to pay for a coffee, and not one dinner invitation.

No coffee? No dinner invitations? Totally uncivilized country. We generally try to take everyone out for dinner when we can ( at least a cup of coffee or a glass of wine at the theater depending on the sunset and how tight our schedule is), just for making it this far south in the World.

We spend so much time, money, and effort to convince people to come to Chile, a cup of coffee is the cheap part of capturing new clients. By the way, we don't serve instant coffee to our clients. Poisoning clients with nescafe we decided was bad for business years ago.

Honestly, it is more that I am still impressed by the power of the internet on some level. That some random unhappy person will start reading this site on the other side of the earth, and actually arrive a couple months or years later in our office in Southern Chile. Many will never even bother to register, but instead will tell me in person over a cup of coffee that they have been reading the forum for years. Of course I always ask why they didn't register; but I never really get much of an answer to that one, or at least one I could make use of for improving the reader to registration rates. Still, it still amazes me after all these years.

One guy in El Bolson, after a rather short rude meeting spent several days frantically trying to contact me when he saw me get in my plane and fly off, I met with him in a heavy marine wool sweater, Carhartt jeans and Kodiak work boots, hell they were all clean and I always fly in heavy work clothes it can be cold up there and I never know where I’ll have to land. I went over to look around when I was in Futa.

Also my Santiago address and poor Chilean accent did not go over well. "Che"

JHyre wrote: If you cannot eat it or carry it out, do not buy it there.

It isn't land but we can haul a little bit of it... and the frontier is only a few km from here

Gasoline/bencina/nafta gets special prices in Argentine Patagonia, but not in Chilean Patagonia.

As a result, we pay the equivalent in US dollars right now of about US$4.00 a gallon for regular grade gasoline in nearby Argentina, and nearly US$6.00 a gallon in Puerto Natales for the same regular fuel gallon.

Needless to say, there is a thriving black market in bringing the stuff over the frontier. Aduana won't let you bring a drop in a gas-can/bidón.

On the other hand, there is stuff in Argentina we can't even get in this part of Chile, like Melitta type drip cone filters for making real coffee. So we have to go across the frontier to get that sort of thing.