The Argentine president is backing a bill that would eliminate most restrictions that have limited foreign ownership of rural land since 2011 — an effort to attract investment and strengthen legal certainty. File Photo by Hector Rio/EPA
BUENOS AIRES, July 21 (UPI) — President Javier Milei’s government is backing a bill that would eliminate most of Argentina’s restrictions that have limited foreign ownership of rural land since 2011 in an effort to attract investment and strengthen legal certainty.
The plan also has reignited debate over sovereignty and control of a resource considered strategic.
The proposal is part of the Private Property Inviolability Act, and it would substantially amend the framework established a law enacted during the administration of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner that set limits on the amount of rural land that foreign individuals and companies could own.
Presidential spokesman Adrián Ravier said the initiative seeks to strengthen property rights protected under Argentina’s Constitution. Speaking at a news conference, he said the country had endured decades of legal uncertainty that discouraged investment and hindered opportunities for economic growth and job creation.
“What we are seeking is to remove the general restrictions on the acquisition of rural land by foreigners,” Ravier said.
He also argued that Argentina historically grew thanks to immigrants who invested and became landowners, and that maintaining broad restrictions on foreign investors no longer makes sense. He added that the bill instead strengthens oversight of foreign governments and their state-owned companies.
The initiative also removes one of the central principles of the current law, which states that purchasing rural land by foreigners does not constitute an investment because the land is a nonrenewable natural resource that belongs to the country.
Former Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Minister Julián Domínguez, who promoted the law during Fernández de Kirchner’s administration, had rejected proposed reform.
He told UPI that when Congress approved the legislation, it established that “the acquisition of rural land shall not be considered an investment because it is a nonrenewable natural resource contributed by the recipient country.”
Domínguez contended the proposal contradicts the objective of protecting a strategic resource.
“It is paradoxical. The grandly titled ‘Private Property Inviolability Act’ ends up being, precisely, a violation of Argentines’ rights over their land,” he said.
The former minister also rejected the government’s argument that the current law discouraged foreign investment.
“Our producers are recognized around the world for their ability to adapt and innovate. So does the government believe a foreigner will do a better job than an Argentine producer? The debate is about something else,” he said.
The issue goes beyond economics. Domínguez said.
“In Congress, what is at stake is our identity as Argentines and our relationship with our territory. Every country is very careful about who can buy its land,” he said.
Attorney Enrique Viale, president of the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers, also criticized the bill, saying it should instead be called the “foreignization of land law.”
He told UPI that the proposal repeals the provisions that establish acreage limits, ownership caps and protected areas for foreign purchases of rural land.
“It repeals the provisions establishing acreage limits, ownership percentages and protected areas. It fully liberalizes land purchases, including in border areas and without ownership caps,” he said.
Viale said foreigners already own large portions of Argentine land, adding that without restrictions, the trend could accelerate.
He said reform would benefit large international investors who seek to develop artificial intelligence-related data centers, as well as foreign landowners who already hold extensive properties in Patagonia and Argentina’s Littoral region.
“I see no benefit in this bill. What it does is consolidate permanent control of land by foreign capital and increase the risk of losing sovereignty,” he said.
From the real estate sector, José Rozados, director of consultancy Reporte Inmobiliario, said easing restrictions could encourage large-scale investment.
“Anything that removes restrictions on the inflow of capital, especially for investments that require large amounts of money and long payback periods, is important,” he said.
Rozados said greater openness would facilitate productive projects that require large tracts of land and significant investment to develop economic activities.
“Whatever legislation is enacted regarding the permissibility and protection of those investments could allow foreign investors, or even local investors partnered with foreign capital, to be willing to invest in large areas of land,” he said.
The law, known as the National Protection Regime for the Ownership, Possession and Tenure of Rural Land, mandates that foreign individuals and companies may not own more than 15% of the country’s rural land — a limit that also applies within each province and municipality.
It also provides that citizens of the same nationality may not account for more than 30% of that quota, equivalent to 4.5% of the total rural land within a given territory.
The legislation also limits to 2,471 acres the amount of land that may be acquired by a single foreign owner in the country’s core agricultural zone, or its equivalent in other regions, and prohibits the sale of land located in border security zones or containing significant permanent bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes and glaciers.
The government’s bill amends several of those provisions to relax the current framework while maintaining restrictions on foreign governments and their state-owned companies.
The ruling coalition failed to secure enough support to move the initiative forward, and the bill will return to the Senate for debate in August.
Central banks are scaling back on the dollar as institutional bullion buying climbs to record highs.
In the World Gold Council’s (WGC) latest annual survey of central banks, 83% of respondents expect to increase their gold holdings over the next year. That’s up from 76% in 2025. This surge in demand is due to the U.S. dollar’s waning preeminence in global reserves and the growing number of international crises.
Almost three-quarters of central banks predict a lower share of global reserves held in greenbacks over the next five years, and a record 45% say they plan to increase their institutional bullion reserves over the next 12 months, up from 43% last year.
Gold recently overtook U.S. government bonds as the world’s top reserve asset, according to the June 16 report. The survey polled 76 central banks between February and May; most responses were received after the recent Mideast hostilities began. Greenbacks accounted for 42% of total reported reserves, including gold and foreign exchange, in the third quarter of last year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
A record 90% of those polled by the WGC say gold’s performance during volatile periods is a key reason for acquiring more of it. Similarly, 82% say they value gold for portfolio diversification, and 84% value it as a long-term store of value.
The metal’s role in hedging geopolitical risk is especially important among central bankers in developing and emerging markets, with 85% citing this factor.
Half of respondents seeking to procure more gold say they will finance such purchases through domestic purchase programs denominated in local currency, while 38% say they would buy more gold by selling existing reserve assets.
Central banks also appear to be rethinking their gold storage strategy. The survey found that 9% of central banks increased domestic storage over the past year, while 10% say they diversified their overseas storage locations.
The Bank of England remains the most popular gold storage location, cited by 57% of respondents, while the Swiss National Bank saw a sharp drop in preference, from 12% to 6% in 2025.
In the past four years, central banks have, on average, acquired 1,000 tonnes of gold annually, double the 500-tonne average of the previous decade. Mainland China’s bullion stores totaled 74.96 million troy ounces in late May, up 320,000 from April, marking the 19th consecutive month of increase, according to the People’s Bank of China.
Ajay Shamdasani is a contributing writer based in Hong Kong.
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China has raised its purchases of oil from the Middle East in recent days, with deep discounts offered by its main supplier Saudi Arabia expected to further boost its buying, the Financial Times reported Monday.
China bought at least 26M
ATLANTA — Bina Ramroop broke down in tears when she realized she wasn’t going to get the World Cup tickets she had bought for her grandson’s 13th birthday.
As thousands poured into Atlanta Stadium on Monday to see Spain face Cape Verde in what turned out to be a remarkable scoreless draw, Ramroop stood outside, increasingly stressed as she went back and forth for hours between StubHub representatives on the phone and FIFA representatives in the ticket booth. Each blamed the other.
No one could figure out why the tickets Ramroop bought months ago on StubHub for $485 apiece couldn’t be transferred from the original seller to the FIFA ticketing app. StubHub offered her a refund and, as Ramroop heard the crowd roar for the start of the match, she knew she had no choice but to give up and take the offer.
“I didn’t want a refund, I didn’t want my money back,” Ramroop said. “I wanted to go to the game.”
The World Cup has delivered thrills on the pitch, but fans have flooded social media with complaints about tickets that never arrived, orders that were canceled at the last minute and hours they spent trying to sort out problems between FIFA’s ticketing system and outside resale platforms.
The vast majority seem to be about industry titan StubHub, but people who bought through competitors such as SeatGeek and Vivid Seats have also reported issues. Interviews with fans and industry experts show that some cases stem from technical glitches in the transfer process, while others could involve sellers who never had tickets to deliver in the first place, though StubHub denies such sales happen on its platform.
FIFA has urged fans to buy resale tickets through its own marketplace, where it slaps a 30% surcharge on every resold ticket — 15% each from the buyer and seller. But many fans bought through other resale sites, either out of habit or because those sites have lower prices or are easier to navigate.
Ramroop didn’t realize she was taking a risk when she bought through StubHub, which she had used in the past without issues.
As she and her grandson Elijah Gomes took the long, lonely train ride back to the Atlanta suburbs, Elijah followed the score on his phone. The match had ended scoreless, and he tried to cheer up his devastated grandmother by telling her they hadn’t missed much after all (Cape Verdeans would beg to differ ).
“He’s telling me, ‘Grandma, it’s OK, Grandma.’ And he’s trying to console me,” Ramroop said the next day.
She was hardly alone. An Associated Press journalist witnessed more than a dozen frustrated fans at the match who said they were stuck in similar situations.
StubHub blamed FIFA for the transfer problems that buyers like Ramroop have experienced. In a statement, it said FIFA has “poor technology infrastructure,” enacted last-minute transfer restrictions and didn’t launch its new ticketing app until a few weeks before the tournament. The company also called out organizers that “take anti-competitive actions” that limit where fans can buy and sell tickets.
Asked about the technical issues, FIFA on Wednesday reiterated that sales through its official site are guaranteed to go through.
Industry observers say the problems appear to stem from more than one cause. For some, it may indeed be technical glitches — an issue that StubHub says is “very, very rare” and one that it is hard at work to solve. For others, they say it’s likely a more longstanding scourge: speculative sellers.
Scott Friedman, an industry veteran and co-founder of a consultancy called the Ticket Talk Network, said some sellers list tickets before they actually have them, betting that prices will fall closer to the event so they can buy the tickets at a better price later. But because World Cup ticket prices have surged since the tournament began, those sellers have been forced to either buy expensive tickets to fulfill their orders or cancel and accept penalties from resale platforms. StubHub’s penalties are typically 200% of the ticket price, Friedman said.
“This is not new at all,” said Friedman, pointing to other high-profile events where frustrated fans were left empty-handed, including Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. “This has been going on, but it’s making global news because it’s the World Cup.”
StubHub says it requires sellers to prove they have tickets before they list them.
But regardless of the reason for the canceled sales, Friedman said “StubHub should fill every single order to make sure fans get in the biggest global sporting event that happens every four years.”
That’s what many fans say they expected when they purchased through StubHub.
StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee promises replacement tickets or a refund if tickets fail to arrive. But the policy repeatedly says those remedies are provided at StubHub’s “sole discretion,” meaning the company can choose a refund instead of securing replacement seats.
“That is pretty explicit language,” said Michael McCann, a sports law expert at the University of New Hampshire. McCann noted that a buyer could try to challenge the language under state consumer protection laws, but it would be an uphill battle.
Pape Ndaw is crestfallen that the high school graduation gift he got for his son — tickets for them to see the Netherlands and Japan near their home city of Dallas — never arrived.
He bought the tickets for about $550 apiece in December. Then, two days before the June 14 match, he received an email from StubHub telling him, “The seller can’t deliver your original tickets.”
Ndaw accepted store credit rather than a refund, thinking he would use the funds to quickly get replacements, only to then realize that the cheapest last-minute tickets were going for more than $1,500 each. Not only were they not going to get to go to the game, but Ndaw said StubHub rejected his belated request for a refund instead of store credit.
Breaking the news to his soccer-obsessed son was brutal, Ndaw said.
“It was a disastrous thing,” he said. “He had told all his friends that he was going to that game. He literally cried. I mean, he is a 17-year-old kid, but he cried.”
Others fared somewhat better.
Patrick O’Neil of Pittsboro, North Carolina, traveled to Atlanta with his wife, son and relatives after purchasing five tickets through StubHub for the Spain-Cape Verde match. Two tickets transferred successfully, but three never arrived.
O’Neil’s 15-year-old son and his uncle ended up using the two tickets, while O’Neil, his wife and another relative watched from a nearby bar.
After local media caught wind of their ordeal, O’Neil said StubHub contacted the family and offered tickets to another game. Since the family had already bought tickets to one, though, he and his wife asked the company to instead give the seats to local nonprofit Soccer in the Streets so they could go to people who otherwise might not be able to attend a match.
“StubHub is not evil, but they’re part of the whole system that makes it really hard for just normal kids and people who might want to see a match get to go,” O’Neil said.
On Thursday, a StubHub representative confirmed to the AP that the company would honor the O’Neils’ request and send tickets to the nonprofit.
Rico and Megnien write for the Associated Press.
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China agreed to buy at least $17 billion of U.S. agricultural products over the next three years, according to a White House fact sheet released Sunday following meetings between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping last week.
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