Economic study of foreign trade in the province of Santa Fe (Argentina) from the socio- economic metabolism approach

The province of Santa Fe generates approximately 7.5% of the Gross Domestic Product of the Argentine Republic and is the second Argentine province by the level of exports, combining a relatively diversified productive structure with an export pattern focused on primary agricultural products. Based on this work, part of the approach proposed by Ecological Economics and in particular the concept of socioeconomic metabolism to apply it in order to determine and make visible the “hidden” material flows that can be opaque due to the monetization of variables from an economic study of foreign trade in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. The study allows us to see that the province of Santa Fe is a net supplier of materials to the rest of the world with a low USD / Tn ratio, obtaining at certain times an mportant exchange balance, but in some periods this exchange rate the balance becomes scarce only with the increase in physical volumes given the high USD / Tn import ratios.