One day after August inflation was known, which stood at 7%, exceeding most previous forecasts, The Secretary of Commerce convened for tomorrow at 11 the main business chambers of the country. The Argentine Industrial Union, Copal, CAME and Cgera were cited, a broad spectrum that encompasses both large companies and SMEs. According to official sources, the objective of the call is to advance in the identification of inputs and the amount of dollars that different industrial sectors and, to a lesser extent, commercial sectors need to work normally in the coming months.
“The idea is that the chambers help us in prioritizing imports of supplies, not get together to bring the list of SIMI with problems. We are going to get together to talk to find a mechanism that allows the cameras to be the catalyst for different claims. 90% of the delay problems with imports are not the SIMI handled by Commerce, but rather the dollars that the Central Bank must release; one thing is that it can be imported and another how to pay for it”, admitted an official source.
The meeting will be more operational than political, which is why technicians from each of the entities will attend to advance in a table that sets priorities and “articulates” the two windows that companies have to go through today to import: the Secretariat of Commerce and the Central Bank.
It is an issue that the Government and business leaders have been discussing for a month, and that will continue with more meetings next week, but that after yesterday’s bad inflation figure it becomes more urgent. The portfolio led by Matías Tombolini wants companies to produce more and increase the supply of products as a way of adding another factor that can take some pressure off prices.
Meanwhile, in the private sector they sought to lower expectations. “Tomorrow we will go listen. They will present an idea and then we will work bilaterally with each of the chambers”, they said in an entity before the consultation of THE NATION. “We are going to prioritize inputs that are not manufactured locally, which must be brought to complement local production lines,” they added, referring to intermediate goods necessary to integrate the production process of final goods.
“Today you have a double lock, two filters. First, that Commerce authorizes you to import and then the Central Bank allows you to pay what you have to pay. What we ask is that we unify, that everything be integrated, a single scheme, a joint table. They will continue to be two windows, but the same instance has to be the correction or articulation, which both feel together because otherwise it cannot be worked. It is very difficult, especially for an SME. This has already happened at a technical level and it is about that, within the disorder, it can be ordered to have the least possible problem ”, they reported in the consulted entity.
The new round of contacts with the cameras comes in a heated context in which it transpired that the Government is studying measures that could lead to a higher differential exchange rate for the dollar destined for outgoing tourism and other goods and services in dollars, the so-called “Qatar dollar”. In a sort of grand bonnet game, both at the official and private levels are very careful not to claim responsibility for the initiative, which would be unpopular, as demonstrated by the reaction of public opinion when former minister Silvina Batakis said that the right to travel “collided with the right to jobs”. The Government lets the rumors spread.
“The sheet is not even short, we don’t have a sheet; that is why we have to see who is covered”, they affirm in another of the summoned cameras. Does this mean a request for an increase in the cost of the dollar for tourism? “From the place we occupy we do not say what the Government has to do; it is the government that has the tools to manage the dollars. Outgoing tourism is a channel through which the dollars go, but it is not the only one. We must also look at the over-invoicing of imports and under-invoicing of exports, another issue that is being worked on”, they add.