27 de setiembre de 2013
By Jose Enrique Arrioja, Katia Porzecanski & Lucia Baldomir
Uruguay Ready to Back UPM Plan to Boost Pulp Output, Mujica Says Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica said he’s prepared to allow a pulp plant owned by Finland’s UPM-Kymmene Oyj (UPM1V) to boost production if it meets stricter environmental requirements. The plant, on the Uruguay River that borders Argentina, will probably be allowed to raise production from its current 1.1 million tons per year, Mujica said in an interview. He declined to say if output could climb as high as the 1.4 million tons sought by the company. He said he will discuss his decision with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner Sept. 30 before making a final announcement.
ver video Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica talks about plans to allow a pulp plant owned by Finland’s UPM-Kymmene Oyj to boost production if it meets stricter environmental requirements. Mujica, speaking to Bloomberg’s Jose Enrique Arrioja and Katia Porzecanski yesterday in New York, also talks about plans to export iron-ore from a deep water port that will begin construction in 2014. (This report is in Spanish. Source: Bloomberg)
“I’m going to make a decision in the middle,” Mujica said yesterday in New York, adding that Helsinki-based UPM will have to ensure the plant lowers the temperature and amount Uruguay’s dollar bonds have lost 13 percent so far this year, of phosphorus in the water it returns to the river. “The deci- double the 6.5 percent decline in emerging market debt, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s EMBIG index. The counsion is not simple. It’s a give and take.” try has an investment-grade BBB- rating from Standard & Mujica, who said he’s already shared his decision with UPM, Poor’s, putting the country of three million people in the same is betting on foreign investments in the country’s natural re- category as Spain and the Philippines. sources to sustain growth in the $49 billion economy. The government is seeking to exploit iron ore reserves that will Mujica said Uruguay is on track to expand 3.8 percent this require a new deep water port on its Atlantic coast that will year. The South American nation expanded 5.6 percent last year. begin construction in 2014. Minera Aratiri, owned by Dubai-based Zamin Group, has been since 2007 seeking government approval to carry out a project that would allow exports of 18 million metric tons a year of iron-ore. Mujica said his government will sign in two months the contract that Aratiri says would convert Uruguay into the world’s eighth-largest producer of the mineral. Debt Issuance
The $1.1 billion pulp plant was the South American country’s biggest investment ever when it began operations in 2007. The project fueled protests by Argentine environmental groups, who blocked bridges connecting the countries because they said it would pollute the river. To contact the reporters on this story: Jose Enrique Arrioja in New York at jarrioja@bloomberg.net; Katia Porzecanski in New York at kporzecansk1@bloomberg.net; Lucia Baldomir in Montevideo at lbaldomir@bloomberg.net
The government will invest about $400 million into a breakwater for the new port to facilitate the exports and could tap local and global debt markets, private investors and re- To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andre Soliani at asoliani@bloomberg.net gional governments to complete the project, he said. “We have the ability to issue local debt, we have access to global credit markets,” Mujica said. “We don’t have any doubts” about being able to make the investment, he added.