Argentina faces a paradox. While it is beginning to stabilize its macroeconomy and benefits from an exceptional combination of energy, mining, and agro-industrial resources, much of its industrial base has endured more than a decade of stagnation. Yet this situation also creates an opportunity: to leverage the existing productive base to transform natural advantages into growth, innovation, and quality employment.
Beyond False Dilemmas: Transforming Productive Potential into Development
Argentina no debe elegir entre recursos naturales e industria, sino construir cadenas que transformen sus ventajas naturales en empleo, innovación y desarrollo.
Bernardo Kosacoff / Diego Coatz
Paper ⎯ 22 de julio de 2026
Publication PDF 
Development depends not only on macroeconomic stability or higher exports of natural resources, but also on building a more complex productive structure capable of generating learning, technological progress, and new productive linkages.
That is the central argument of Turning Urgency into Opportunity: Industry, Productive Capabilities, and Development in Argentina, by Diego Coatz and Bernardo Kosacoff. The paper contends that development depends not only on macroeconomic stability or higher exports of natural resources, but also on building a more complex productive structure capable of generating learning, technological progress, and new productive linkages.
The authors note that industry continues to be the leading source of innovation. Although it accounts for only 14% to 15% of GDP in OECD countries, it represents between 55% and 70% of business investment in research and development and generates a strong multiplier effect on employment.
Source: SIPA, SRT, and the author's own estimates.
Argentina retains a rare asset among developing economies: a diversified industrial base that accounts for nearly 19% of both value added and formal employment, represents more than half of private-sector investment in R&D, and encompasses capabilities ranging from food production and steelmaking to biotechnology, nuclear energy, and satellite technology.
In an international context shaped by China’s industrial rise and the resurgence of industrial policies across the world’s leading economies, the authors advocate a pragmatic approach to international integration. The challenge is not only to attract investment—including projects promoted under the RIGI framework—but also to integrate those investments into the domestic productive fabric through local suppliers and the transfer of capabilities.
The conclusion is clear: Argentina’s development does not depend on choosing between natural resources and industry, but on combining the strengths of both to generate greater value added, innovation, exports, and formal employment.