Restatement of regulations on payment of imports

On April 6, 2010, the Central Bank of Argentina (the “Central Bank”) issued Communication “A” 5060 (the “Communication”) which restated and issued additional regulations in connection with the payment of local imports of goods.

These regulations apply to local residents and to local financial institutions with respect to their foreign obligations stemming from guarantees granted on import transactions.

The main changes effected through the Communication are the following:

a) The notion of “customs entrance registration” is introduced as a new category. An import transaction is considered as having complied with the customs entrance registration when the importer has made the import clearance official for further port clearance of the goods, or when the customs procedure for the entering of goods from other countries into the national tax-free area is fulfilled, and for those entered into Argentina by means of a Private Request with port clearance of goods or by Courier.

b) The following transactions are considered to be “payment of imports”: advance payments, payments on demand and payment of commercial guarantees related to imports, granted by financial institutions, and trade debts derived from the financing of imports. In all cases, there is a distinction in treatment between transactions with a customs entrance registration and transactions without a customs entrance registration.

c) As of July 1, 2010 a new supervision and information procedure related to the payment of imports is established, called SEPAIMPO (the Spanish acronym for “Supervision of Payment of Imports). This system allows for electronic supervision of both the payments linked to an official import clearance and the nationalization of the goods into Argentina. This procedure is similar to the one established for the monitoring of exports of goods.

d) For each operation importers have to designate a local bank that will be in charge of the supervision of the customs entrance registration of the operation.

e) Nominated entities have the obligation to control and report non-compliance of the regulation.

Additionally, the Communication sets the general requirements for payment of imports which include submitting the following documentation:

(i) commercial invoice issued in a foreign country to the local resident, indicating the amount, value and description of the goods;

(ii) copy of freight documentation;

(iii) Customs entrance registration of the goods into Argentina; if there is no such registration the importer has to file an affidavit and commit to demonstrate the entrance of the goods in the term of 90 consecutive days to be counted as from the date of access to the local foreign exchange market (FEM);

(iv) the beneficiary of the payment has to be the foreign supplier or the non-Argentine resident indicated in the bill of lading or, if applicable, the non-Argentine resident who financed the purchase as long as the transaction qualifies as trade debt, or the non-Argentine resident who acquired the relevant invoice from the foreign supplier;

(v) the debtor must have complied, if applicable, with: a) the Informative Regime on Foreign Debt set forth by Communication "A" 3602 and b) with the Reporting Regime on Direct Investments set forth by Communication “A” 4237 of the Central Bank in the event the foreign creditor belongs to the same economic group of the local importer.