Download - FDCL

72
OECD area by European companies. [...] Traditional FDI patterns were the result
of European investors’ preference for large and protected markets. Notably
in the automobile and chemical industries, the size and growth of markets
provided the major stimulus to FDI in the MERCOSUR region. Multinational
companies used FDI mainly to overcome import barriers.” 179
While in 1991 only three European corporations where among the top ten
Argentine companies, in 1999 there where already seven: YPF Repsol, Telefónica,
Telecom, Supermercados Norte, Shell, Supermercados Discos and Carrefour. 180
Particularly in the business sectors, which were privatized and primarily sold to foreign
corporations, like telecommunications, aviation, water and wastewater market,
energy and gas, the highest percentual layoffs were implemented through firings
and outsourcing in Argentina as a result of the privatizations. In terms of employee
numbers, setting the index of 1990=100 shows that in 1998 the index in the telecommunications
sector fell to 51, in aviation to 44, in the water and waste water
sector to 52, in gas to 48 and in the energetic sector to 30. 181 According to these
numbers no new jobs were created through FDI in Argentina in the nineties, instead
jobs were cut.
The liberalized drinking water market had turned out to be an especially sensitive
area in the nineties. Between 1991 and 1999 one third of the Argentinian potable
water market, which covers the water supply of nearly 60 percent of the population,
was privatized. 182 The biggest takeover was the acquisition of Obras Sanitarias de la
Nación (OSN) by Aguas Argentinas, of which the French Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux
holds 39.93 percent, Aguas de Barcelona holds 25.01 percent (of which Suez is
the majority shareholder, next to the Spanish Endesa with 11.64% 183 ), the French
Vivendi holds 7.55 percent and the British Anglian Water 184 holds 4.25 percent of
the shares. 185 In 1993 Aguas Argentinas had agreed to invest 4 billion US-dollars to
improve the infrastructure and expand the water pipe and sewerage systems. In exchange
the Argentinian government accepted that the company’s personnel would
be cut by 47% (from 7,600 to 4,000). 186
179
Ibid., p. 231.
180
Catalano, José: Las negociaciones MERCOSUR-Unión Europea: una visión desde la sociedad civil, preliminary
version, December 2002, p. 34.
181
Ibid., p. 37.
182
UNCTAD: FDI AND DEVELOPMENT: The case of privatization-related services, TD/B/COM.2/EM.14/2, p. 11.
183
http://www.agbar.es/eng/nt/ntea001.htm.
184
Anglian Water is part of AWG Plc, where, among others, the Deutsche Bank AG holds shares amounting to 4.24
%. See: http://www.hemscott.co.uk/equities/company/cd02043.htm.
185
http://www.aguasargentinas.com.ar/frameset_aguas.html.
186
UNCTAD: FDI AND DEVELOPMENT: The case of privatization-related services, TD/B/COM.2/EM.14/2, p. 11.