President Javier Milei hopes that massive investments in energy and mining will not only reshape the country’s productive and export profile but also transform where millions of Argentines live.
Deregulation and State Transformation Minister Federico Sturzenegger, one of the cabinet members most closely aligned with the president’s economic ideas, has expressed this ambition the clearest.
Sturzenegger recently stated that 1.5 million people could move to Neuquén over the next thirty years. The province is the epicenter of oil and shale gas development, Vaca Muerta, and the region with the country’s highest economic growth rate.
If this estimate proves accurate, it would imply a population increase of 111%, something unprecedented given that there are 710,000 people currently living in the Patagonian province.
Sturzenegger also projected that mining investments over the same period would attract one million new residents to Catamarca. Given that the province currently only has 367,000 inhabitants, the population growth would mean a 172% increase.
