Free sugar: the mandatory domestic-supply quota falls

DNU 70/2023, in its art. 156 (Title VI 'Bioeconomy'), repealed Law No. 18.770 (in force since 1970), which established a regime of mandatory sugar deliveries for domestic-market consumption: the enforcement authority could assign each mill a sugar quota to be destined for domestic supply, calculated on historical production, inventories and prior sales. With the law falling, the mills come to dispose of ALL their production and freely decide what percentage they export, with no administrative domestic-market quota. It is a deregulation of the regional sugar economy (NOA: Tucumán, Salta, Jujuy). The repeal is firm: although the Senate rejected the DNU (Mar-2024), the Chamber of Deputies never considered it and, under Law 26.122, a DNU only loses validity if BOTH chambers reject it. The seal remains 'probable' until the full articles are re-read in the primary source. verif · Dec 20, 2023 ↗

Decree signed on Dec 20, 2023 (primary-source header: 'City of Buenos Aires, 12/20/2023', signed MILEI) and published in the Official Gazette on Dec 21, 2023 (notice 301122). Note: the operative articles do NOT contain an express 'within 8 calendar days' validity clause (arts. 360-366 are substantive and closing articles: 365 'report to the Bicameral Committee', 366 'be it communicated'). The Dec 29, 2023 entry-into-force date comes from the SUPPLEMENTARY RULE of the Civil and Commercial Code (art. 5: laws take effect 8 days after publication if they set no time) and from convergent press, NOT from a verbatim clause of the DNU. The repeal of Law 18.770 was not judicially suspended (unlike the labor chapter of the same DNU) and is in force as of the consultation date. verif · Dec 21, 2023 ↗

The NOA sugar chain (Tucumán —which concentrates most of national production—, Salta and Jujuy): mills and sugar companies, which stop being required to destine a quota of their production to the domestic market and can freely direct surpluses to export. It also affects the cane growers who supply the mills and, on the domestic-market side, the domestic sugar supply, which comes to be governed by supply and demand with no legal quota guarantee. The NOA sugar producers (Salta and Tucumán leaders) welcomed the measure as an opening of the regional economy. verif · Dec 20, 2023 ↗