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With Residency In Argentina,
I Am A Member Of Mercosur
Residency
In Argentina ~ by Delores Johnson
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January
2006
Buenos
Aires
I see Mercosur as my passport to
living and working in the South American continent. By getting my Argentine
residency now, while it is relatively easy, I am making sure that my family
has greater freedom to live where and how it wants to.
Many people do not know what Mercosur
is. I did not know before moving to Buenos Aires eighteen months ago. Mercosur
is a political and economic bloc of countries, similar to the European
Union. Five countries in South America: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay,
and Venezuela are members. Five other South American countries are associate
members: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Colombia signed an
agreement at the end of 2005 that moves it closer to becoming a full member.
Growing up in the United States,
I did not have a clear idea of the limitations that the borders of different
countries place on people. When I was seventeen, my father lost his job,
and we moved between States, from Oklahoma to Texas. We had to get new
driving licenses and register the cars in the new state, but other than
that, the move had the same challenges that any move has; packing, unpacking,
registering in new schools, etc.
We could have been moving across
town. We could drive across the state border without being stopped. We
did not have to show any identification. We did not need any kind of visa
to enter. My father found a new job and did not have to have a work permit.
We did not have to worry about paying any duties when we brought our truck
load of things from one state to another.
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Brazilian
bank in Argentina
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This is what happens to the borders
between countries as they form a political and economic bloc. You no longer
need to have visas, work permits, or pay duties on your personal items.
You become free to take yourself, your family, your possessions, and your
money from one country to another, just as my family did when we moved
from Oklahoma to Texas.
We are planning a driving trip to
neighboring Uruguay. We are member of the Argentine Automobile Club. They
have emergency road service, in addition to maps and other services. For
example, we also bought our car insurance from them.
I called the main office of the Argentine
Automobile Club to ask if our car would be covered by their insurance if
we drove it from Argentina into Uruguay. You can imagine their answer.
Since Argentina is a member of Mercosur, we can drive our car into any
Mercosur country and the insurance is valid. We can drive our car from
Argentina to Uruguay and back without any problems.
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Restored
docks in Puerto Madero, Argentina
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You can not
drive a car between the United States and Mexico without getting additional
Mexican insurance. Because of our Argentine residency, we already
have greater freedom to move between Argentina and Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela,
and Brazil than Americans do with their neighbor, Mexico.
The U.S. government has now been
backing the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) that would stretch from
Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. However, according to statistics in a December
5, 2005, article of the Buenos Aires Herald, Mercosur already covers 252
million people, almost 70 percent of South America’s 362 million, and US$803
billion in annual gross domestic product, almost 90 percent of the continent’s
US$906 billions in goods and services produced each year.
I lived and traveled in Spain before
it became a member of the European Community. Its scenery, people, and
climate made it a lovely place to live, but there were few jobs and a great
deal of poverty before it became a member of the European Community.
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When the announcement
was made that Spain would become a member of the European Community, investment
poured into Spain, and it has become a land of opportunity. Europeans from
other countries come not only to vacation, as they had done before, but
to buy real estate. Many buy second homes for their vacations and have
retired there. They invested wisely.
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Right now in Argentina, you only
need to show US$800 monthly income as an individual or family to get residency.
This creates an incredible opportunity.
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For example,
it is cheaper to live in Argentina than it is to live in Venezuela. Yet,
to get residency in Venezuela, right now you have to show US$1,500 monthly
income as an individual and US$2,000 as a family. With time, it is likely
that the residency requirements of Argentina will become more similar to
Venezuela’s.
If I am correct, Mercosur will grow
in influence and my family and I are gaining access to all of South America
at bargain basement prices with our Argentine residency. As Mercosur grows,
we will be able to move ourselves to any of its member countries, just
as my family moved from Oklahoma to Texas.
Even though we will be free to move
about the South American continent, we are planning our investment in Argentine
real estate. In 2002, the value of the Argentine peso fell after nearly
a decade of it being tied to the US dollar. The peso is now at about one
third of its former value. That means that things are one third the price
of what they were. There are many opportunities in the real estate market.
We have contacted the same real estate
agent that we used to find our rental house. That rental process is fully
described in an E-Book, Moving to Argentina, and there is also information
about how we got our residency and moved a container full of stuff to Argentina.
We are also researching the best
way to buy property. Each family’s situation would be different and we
are in contact with a local real estate lawyer to help us. We feel that
the time to gain our foothold in South America is now.
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Walkway
near Puerto Madero docks
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And perhaps, our foothold will be
more than just South America. On January, 2005, the Caribbean Trade Zone
of the six Caribbean nations of Jamaica, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Suriname
and Trinidad and Tobago went into effect. With Venezuela so close, (it
has an island in the Caribbean), only time will tell how large the influence
of Mercosur will be.
To read more about Mercosur, use
this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercosur
To read more about establishing residency
in Argentina, use this link:
http://www.lifeinargentina.com
To contact
Delores Click Here
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