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I didn’t come to Arica for carbon credits.

I came because the factory in Vietnam raised rent again. Again. And because my supplier in Guangdong said, “QiongQi, your order is stuck — the aluminum foil you ordered? They’re out of stock. Again.”

So I looked north.

Arica. Quiet. Close to Peru. Cheap land. No one’s building there — at least, not yet.

I thought: Maybe here, I can finally breathe.

Then last week, I got an email from the local environmental office.

“Developers of existing projects who initiate a new stage within their project will need to pay the relevant fees for that stage.”

It was buried in a PDF. No call. No meeting. Just a notice.

I read it three times.

I didn’t know we were in a carbon project.

I just wanted to make pens.

The silence between the lines

I’ve been in business for 18 years. I’ve seen factories move from Guangdong to Yunnan, from Yunnan to Cambodia, from Cambodia to Vietnam.

Each time, the rules changed.

But in Chile? The rules don’t shout. They whisper.

You think you’re signing a lease for land.

Then you find out the land might be under a “carbon offset eligibility zone.”

You think you’re applying for a business license.

Then you’re told: “You need to confirm whether your production line qualifies under Ministerial Instructions No. 12-2025.”

I asked a local lawyer — not the flashy one in Santiago, but the quiet one in Arica who speaks Mandarin because his wife is from Nanjing.

He said: “It’s not that the law changed. It’s that they started enforcing it. And nobody told you.”

I didn’t know I was supposed to know.

I thought: I’m just a small factory owner. I don’t make cars. I don’t build solar farms. Why does this matter to me?

But then I looked at the list of fees.

It’s not just for emissions.

It’s for water use. For waste handling. For transportation of materials.

And if you don’t pay? Your permit is suspended.

Not revoked. Suspended.

That’s worse.

Because you can’t restart. Not easily.

The variables no one talks about

Here’s what I’ve learned in three months in Arica:

  1. The city is small. The bureaucracy is thick.
    You can walk into the municipal office and talk to the same person three days in a row. They remember you. But they don’t have answers. They just say: “Check with REMA.”

  2. Carbon isn’t just for big companies.
    I didn’t realize that even small manufacturing — especially if you use electricity from the grid, or transport materials by diesel truck — might be counted in a regional emissions inventory.

  3. The government isn’t trying to scare you.
    They’re trying to systematize. The Ministerial Instructions from January 13, 2025, are meant to bring clarity. But clarity doesn’t help if you didn’t know the game had rules.

I spoke to two other Chinese factory owners here.

One is making USB cables. He got a letter saying his warehouse’s lighting upgrade might trigger a carbon fee.

The other is printing notebooks. She’s scared to buy a new printing machine — because if it uses more power, they might classify it as a “new stage.”

We didn’t talk about it in public.

We just nodded.

We all know: If you’re small, you’re invisible until you’re not.

My doubts. My quiet questions.

I used to think: If I work harder, I’ll get ahead.

Now I wonder: Am I working harder… or just getting caught in more systems I didn’t sign up for?

I’m not angry.

I’m just… tired.

I left深圳 because I wanted to build something stable.

Now I’m wondering:

Is stability here even possible?

Or am I just moving my problems from one country to another — while pretending the rules are the same?

I read the news today: a school shooting in Calama. A border wall of trenches being dug between Chile and Peru. An earthquake in the north.

And here I am, worrying about whether my pen factory’s new conveyor belt needs a carbon fee.

It feels absurd.

But also… real.

Because this is the new global reality:

You don’t need to be a climate giant to be caught in the climate system.

And if you’re a small business owner — especially one without a legal team — you won’t even know you’re in it until the letter arrives.

What I’m doing now — and what I’m not

I’m not quitting.

But I’m pausing.

Here’s what I’ve done:

  • Step 1: I requested a copy of the full Ministerial Instructions No. 12-2025 from the Ministerio del Medio Ambiente website.
  • Step 2: I asked the Arica municipal office to confirm whether my current production line (100% manual assembly, 30kW power draw) qualifies as a “new stage” under the rules.
  • Step 3: I called the Chilean Environmental Management Agency (REMA) hotline — in Spanish — and asked: “If I have no emissions monitoring equipment, but I use electricity from the grid, am I subject to these fees?”
    They said: “It depends on your location and your projected annual energy consumption. Please consult a local environmental consultant.”

I didn’t get a yes or no.

But I got a path.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

✅ Key point 1: Fees are only triggered if you initiate a new stage. Not if you’re just maintaining.
✅ Key point 2: If you’ve already committed emissions reductions to Chile’s NDC — even indirectly — you may be exempt.
✅ Key point 3: All payments go to the Fondo Nacional del Medio Ambiente (Rwanda Green Fund? No — Fondo Nacional del Medio Ambiente de Chile). Don’t confuse the two.

I’m not sure if I’ll pay.

I’m not sure if I’ll expand.

But I’m going to keep making pens.

Just… more carefully.

Maybe different people have different answers.

Maybe for you, this is just noise.

Maybe you’re already paying carbon fees in Germany or Japan.

Maybe you’re not even in Arica — you’re in Ho Chi Minh City, or Jakarta, or Nairobi — and you’re facing the same silent shift:

The rules are changing, but no one told you how.

I don’t have a solution.

I only have a question:

If the world is making it harder for small factories to survive — who’s left to make the things we actually need?

I still believe in making things.

I still believe in building slowly.

I just wonder if the system still lets us.

If you’ve been through this — I’d like to hear from you.

Have you ever been blindsided by a regulation you didn’t know existed?

Did you push through? Or did you walk away?

If you’re in Chile — especially in the north — and you’re a small manufacturer, I’d love to connect.

We don’t need to solve it all today.

But maybe, together, we can learn the language of the silence.

You can find JingJing on WeChat: lvga2015.

She doesn’t offer legal advice.

But she listens.

And sometimes, that’s the first step.

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