Overshadowed during the 19th century by the dominant wool and hides merchants, local industry was further marginalized by the 1876 advent of transatlantic chilled beef and cereals shipping.

An initiative led by Corrientes Province Senator Antonio Cambaceres resulted in the February 7, 1887, establishment of the UIA, whose membership reflected a reunified industrial lobby.

The group enjoyed increasing support among the nation's lawmakers, however, and the inaugural of Carlos Pellegrini as President following a political crisis made the UIA a powerful influence for the first time.

One of the first milestones in this new era was the 1891 customs law, which for the first time in Argentine history set tariffs on a number of imported industrial supplies at or below those of finished goods.

Benefiting from its position as the world's leading recipient of investment from the British Empire, and the resulting expansion in railway lines, Argentine industry and agriculture both grew markedly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and economic growth overall averaged 8% in the generation after 1880.

[3] Representing a sector which had grown to over 300,000 industrial workers by 1914, the UIA had become a fixture in policy discussions,[4] and this presence was symbolized by the 1922 opening of their new headquarters on the Avenida de Mayo (at a roughly equidistant point between Congress and the presidential offices at the Casa Rosada).

[2] Positioned more strongly amid a renewed economic boom, the UIA inaugurated its new headquarters in November 1974 - a 31-story building named after their influential early supporter, President Carlos Pellegrini.

[2] The dictatorship's new Minister of the Economy, José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz, ordered wages frozen (amid 30% monthly inflation) and achieved an initial exchange rate stabilization.

Cavallo responded to an increase in dumping by restricting clothing imports, for instance, and the sudden, initial boom in GDP (which grew by a third in four years) was shared by manufacturing.

Lacking real influence in the Menem administration, particularly after Cavallo's 1996 removal, the UIA relied increasingly on its access to the Argentine press (notably Clarín, the nation's premier news daily).

[7] The Convertibility Plan eventually became unsustainable, however, and a severe crisis led to the UIA's sale of the Carlos Pellegrini building to local conglomerate Pérez Companc in 2001, and to their relocation to their belle époque Avenida de Mayo headquarters.

The appointment that April of a center-left economist who had helped shape the 1973 Social Pact, Roberto Lavagna, earned the UIA's support with his heterodox policy of regular wage increases, vigorous infrastructure investment, and a weak peso (which the Central Bank of Argentina maintained relatively undervalued by buying over 50 billion U.S. dollars in subsequent years).