ALUAR (Aluminio Argentina) and the Argentine deindustrialization process in recent years
As a combination of a loss of dynamism of private initiative, misguided and regressive public policies and severe external shocks, in the last few years Argentina has entered a process of industrial degradation that has caused the sector to regress to decades ago, losing significance in the economy as a whole.
Within the framework of this gloomy situation at sector level, Aluar, the only primary aluminum producer in the country, presented a performance that in several aspects went against the general rule of the industrial apparatus.
In this paper, together with an exhaustive reconstruction of the recent past of this company integrated along the aluminum chain, the axes in which it accompanied the Argentine fortune as well as those in which it marked the difference will be presented, detecting the respective reasons.
From the business history field and using business, sectorial and journalistic sources, the article will link business strategies, public policies and global transformations. Within the company, it will be analyzed its profits, investment and innovation processes, change of the energy/environmental matrix, employment, exports, internal substitution, positioning in the local commercial chain and regional gravitation.
In short, is Aluar, due to its structural features, a rara avis in the cone of shadows of the Argentine industrial evolution? Therefore, can the large corporations of the domestic bourgeoisie drive the national development based on their own capacities or are they primarily dependent on extraordinary local and foreign rewards?
