November 13, 2007 (LPAC)--Leaders of the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA) have issued a call for the creation of a National Development Bank, "to have a financial instrument for productive investment." The model, even if they don't mention it, is the First and Second Banks of the United States, based on Alexander Hamilton's plans, and the issuance of industrial and agricultural credit by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

At various points in its past history, particularly during the latter part of the 19th Century, the UIA has embraced the protectionist policies associated with the American System of Political Economy, to promote industrial development. While the UIA hasn't maintained this outlook consistently, now under the pro-industry model adopted by President Nestor Kirchner over the past five years, today's UIA states emphatically that "we are betting on an industrialist model" and demanding the means to finance it.

The UIA's Vice President, Osvaldo Rial, points to Brazil's giant National Economic and Social Development Bank (BNDES) as a model for the kind of entity Argentina needs, but on a smaller scale. BNDES was founded during the second Presidency of nationalist President Getulio Vargas in the early 1950s, for the explicit purpose of financing Brazil's industrialization. Its Vice President, Armando Mariante, will be one of the speakers at the UIA's annual conference Nov. 15-16, whose title is "From Industrial Recovery to a Development Project."

Argentina's President-elect, Sen. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, has been invited to address the closing session of the UIA's conference, where she is expected to outline her plans for expanding the industrialization process begun by her husband, and to provide details on her proposed "social pact" among labor, business and government. UIA President Carlos Lascurain has rejected the idea that a social pact would simply be "an agreement among corporations dealing only with prices and wages," stressing that it must rather address a range of issues that are in "the interests of all the parties."