One year after it was approved by Congress and launched to fanfare, one of President Javier Milei’s flagship policies, the Régimen de Incentivos para Grandes Inversiones incentive scheme for major investments – better known as RIGI – is still not taking off.
Over the past 12 months, seven initiatives totalling US$13.167 billion in investment have been approved. A further 11 projects are still in the pipeline. There has been only one rejection until now, a project put forth by the Chinese firm Ganfeng.
“RIGI is coming along a bit slowly,” economist Federico Bernini tells Perfil. “The projects took their time in being presented and approved.”
RIGI projects have shown scant investment activity. For example, on imports.
“ The imports are moving slowly, with even various projects already approved yet to register purchases. But most of these projects are long-term – copper, for example – so that the imports are not instantaneous but take time,” said Bernini, a member of Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política (IIEP) at the University of Buenos Aires.
The October midterms are also stalling investment. “They could be awaiting the results of the elections to know whether there exists a possibility of non-compliance with the conditions,” as happened with the mining investment le
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