The new chapter on Fair Prices, announced by the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, has a series of conditions that will try to anchor expectations and tame inflation, today one of the main concerns of the Government. Unions and social organizations are also looking closely at the issue, in the face of parities and wages hit by the rise in prices, but with a low profile, far from the flashes that Truckers aroused last month.
Clearly, according to projections by private consultants such as EcoGo, Abeceb and Econviews, the January price rise would be higher than last December, 5.1% for INDEC, with the possibility of scratching 6%.
Fernando Marengo, from Arriazu Macroanalistas believes that the figure for the first month of 2023 will be 5.5% but with “enormous discretion on the part of the Government with rates and regulated price adjustments, an increasingly larger portion of the CPI”.
In February, the outlook does not appear encouraging due to the series of increases already authorized: rates for public services, rentals, fuel, cell phone and prepaid. A combo to which you can add the advance of the blue dollar, which had a greater movement due to the summer season.
Massa, as he mentions on every occasion, and yesterday during the presentation was no exception, he does not hide the problem that the strong rise in prices means, he trusts his fighting methods and knew how to gather a range of businessmen behind his announcement, union members of the CGT with great affinity, such as Héctor Daer and Carlos Acuña, and mayors. “Inflation is the worst poison an economy has, because it is a loss of currency value,
loss of salary value, loss of assets and patrimony, but also because it means that there are no rules”, the official pointed out during his speech.
The increases in meat and the blue dollar would bring greater inflationary pressure
And he spoke of certainties: the first is that “there are almost 50,000 products that from February 1 to June 30 will only increase by 3.2% per month.” Immediately afterwards, he specified that 2,000 products “will continue to have fixed prices, because it is what allows the consumer or the worker to take a little more care of their income, their salary when choosing in the supermarket gondola.”
The part titled controls also knew how to occupy a space in the minister’s exhibition. With the noise generated by the entry of representatives of the Moyano union to supermarket distribution centers in the last month, plus the actions of social organizations, some of them in tune with the Frente de Todos, Massa acknowledged that the “great challenge was to solve this fear that presents in some the idea that verification or control is bad”.
In fact, he said that many saw “a vest from a municipality, a union, in a supermarket and they immediately panicked, when in reality what they were doing was checking. For those who don’t like physical verifications, we implement a verification system of 15 million data per day online”.
At this point, the role of the unions ceased to have a direct impact. The appearance of Truckers was followed by a proclamation from the union collective of Carlos Acuña, that of service station workers, which motorized an audit of fuel prices, relieving 60% of the outlets and verifying a high level of compliance. But other unions committed to the issue did not appear, nor did new actions with media effect to evaluate the development of Fair Prices.
What’s more: some like ATE Capital asked, through their leader, Daniel Catalano, that the Government take inspectors with the capacity to close down businesses to the streets in a first stage, as the leader expressed to this medium, and others directly They took a prudent distance, like the Food Union, which with Rodolfo Daer at the head, Héctor’s brother, cultivates a profile diametrically opposed to the Moyano family.
The only thing left standing, with field actions, is La Dignidad, a social organization led by a former official of the Ministry of Social Development, Rafael Klejzer. In dialogue with PROFILE, he maintained that he has no relationship with the Ministry of Domestic Trade and that they visited 150 supermarkets in Buenos Aires to see what happens with the official program.
“We found disparities in points in the province of Buenos Aires and we put the information in a document that we are going to deliver to the Secretary of Commerce,” explained Klejzer, who announced that there will be monitoring in establishments in the provinces. In Commerce, before consulting this medium, they clarify that the control capacity is exclusive to the State and that the information that the organizations obtain is shared.
“Just as there are employers who convey difficulties or needs, there are also unions or organizations that inform us of some situations that need to be verified,” they say close to Tombolini. In addition, they add that they only had formal contact with Daniel Menéndez from Barrios de Pie to work on the dissemination of the Precios Justos app.
Numbers
- 6% would be inflation for January, according to private consultants.
- If it continues like this, 17% would be accumulated between January and March of this election year.
- 94.8% was the inflationary rise for all of 2022, according to INDEC, which will release last month’s number next week.
- The objective of the head of Economy is to at least lower the monthly CPI to between 3% and 4% to achieve the annual goal of 60%.
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