President CFK urges corporations, workers to 'rationalize distribution'

By Liliana Franco

While giving a closing speech at the 16th Argentine Industrial Union (UIA) in Costa Salguero, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner assured that in this century, profitability in the sector would be strongly tied to "knowledge" and technological innovation."

"There are several places in which a president may feel comfortable or uncomfortable, but that comfort comes from the politics I've enacted during my administration. And two sectors I feel comfortable talking to are the industrial businessmen and the CGT labor confederation.

Those two are the strongest sectors to appear in our post-crisis economic model," she said.

Mrs. Fernández de Kirchner explained that corporations as well as workers had to "be rational" when debating profit distribution and always do it within the confines of the law and the Constitution, specially in a government that supports a Labor Ministry in which every worker feels represented.

"The industry I imagine for the 21st century is one in which we don't profit through salaries or prices, but through knowledge and technology," the head of state said.

She then urged all sectors to come together in a three-party covenant (government, industry and workers) in the next few years, in a similar way to the pact recently sealed with the hydrocarbon sector.

"We can't keep forty million citizens hostage of a practice that is hurtful to the country," she said.
During her speech the President also announced the creation and building of a permanent science and technology expo on a lot in the Vicente López area.

Regarding Tecnópolis, the science and technology expo that was called off due to major differences with city government authorities, the President said "we should be opening it today, but we were not able to do it due to reasons that I won't go into. So we're going to turn it into a permanent expo in which we will be showing any advances made in the field of science or industry, just like the Rural Society does. We will build this in the area where the old Villa Martelli workshops are located."

"Our goal will be to show what we've been able to achieve as Argentines in the last 200 years. The industrial sector will have an expo every year," she added.

President Fernández de Kirchner arrived after 1 pm to the Costa Salguero exposition complex. She was joined by Buenos Aires province governor Daniel Scioli and Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo.