The abolition of electricity subsidies to the industrial sector, which was announced on Friday, November 17, by the Minister of Energy and Mining, Fernando Santos, has caused reactions in different production sectors.

One such reaction occurred even before the official announcement of the measure, which affects large regulated consumers in the industrial, commercial and service sectors, when José Antonio Camposano, president of the National Chamber of Aquaculture (CNA), posted on his profile. The leader added that the competitiveness of at the very bottom and continues to be destroyed. “They were never interested in promoting an environment of efficiency,” he criticized.

The government abolishes subsidies for industrial sector electricity for large consumers

After the announcement of the measure, Camposano reacted to his publish Previous: “A new increase in the price of energy for all industrial sectors that work at night is another blow by the government to the departure of national production.” This paper consulted CNA’s position on the regime’s announcement to end this subsidy, but they indicated that they will have a wider announcement this Monday, November 20.

However, Camposano added: “Creating night-shift employment is much more expensive than daytime employment, even because of the risk of moving at night in a country where the government has shown a complete inability to guarantee safety. Again, the private sector pays for the inefficiency of the state.”

The subsidy has been in effect since January 2018, and consists of a reduction in the value of the exchange rate for the basic demand period from 22:00 to 08:00.

This is not the first time that the shrimp sector has been affected by the removal of the subsidy. On December 2, 2022, the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, ordered the abolition of the diesel subsidy in this sector for farms with more than 30 productive hectares.

This elimination was implemented through Executive Order 614, signed by the President, who assured that “every cent of that subsidy eliminated from the large shrimp farming sector will now go directly to welfare; straight to medicine, books, food parcels.” However, Camposano assured at the time that the measure affected 82% of the nation’s shrimp farming area and represented an impact of $0.16 per pound of shrimp.

Shrimp farms with more than 30 hectares were left without subsidies for diesel fuel

Now, the decision to end preferences in electricity prices for the industrial sector in general was made in a letter signed by Santos addressed to Luis Bonilla, director of the Agency for the Regulation and Control of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources.

In the document that this newspaper had access to, Santos points out that appropriate analyzes were carried out on information that corresponds to the stated incentive. Based on that, he ordered to “implement the cancellation of this tariff incentive for the consumption of electricity in the industrial sector”.

It is stated that the measure corresponds to the mechanism of encouraging energy efficiency for large regulated consumers in the industrial, commercial and service sectors.

The text specifies that “there are no plans to issue savings certificates for 2024, but they will be received during the first quarter of 2024 with the aim of including them in the price list guidelines for 2025”.

The letter signed by the Minister of Energy responds to the Agency’s request for guidelines and instructions for phase 2 of the Price Management Process: Price List for 2024. It is also established that the current marketing costs of the energy service of electricity in the residential category will be maintained.

In the same way, the application of the decent rate subsidy, exemptions for the elderly, reductions for people with disabilities, and incentive rates of the Energy Efficiency Program (PEC) will continue.

Meanwhile, the executive director of the Ecuadorian Business Committee (CEE), Gabriela Uquillas, indicated this Saturday, November 18, that internal information is being collected to calculate the impact of the measure on the productive sectors and publish an official position on the matter.