Industries went on alert. From the Association of National Entrepreneurs for Development (Enac) they warned that this rise will impact costs, and will mean a transfer at prices between 5 and 10%. Meanwhile, the Industriales Pymes Argentinas (IPA) entity considered that the increases in gondola could be between 10 and up to 15%. This Thursday, the Indec reported that inflation was 6% in April, accumulated 23.1% in the first quarter and it reached 58% year-on-year, the highest figure since 1991.
This Thursday, from IPA they sent a note to the Secretary of Energy, in charge of Darío Martínez, to request two possible solutions: one could be segmentation, which the Ministry of Economy will do for households, so that it can also be applied between small and big industries. Another alternative will be that it can be paid “in stages” over several months, “so that the strong impact is diluted and does not hit so hard,” said Daniel Rosato, head of IPA, in dialogue with Ámbito.
Asked about which answer he sees as more viable, he considered that dividing the increase into sections could be done directly, as opposed to a segmentation. “An increase of 70% means a direct 10% in the gondola, it is strongly inflationary”, he claimed. Meanwhile, a sector of the Government considers that the weighting of energy in total costs is low. Last year, while households had practically frozen rates, companies also had electricity increases of around 70%.
Entities such as the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA) also requested government intervention, but by way of subsidies. This was stated by Alberto Calsiano, head of the UIA Department of Energy, during the public hearing: “The industry paid the highest price for electricity over time. We request to reduce until eliminating the dispersion of the price of the wholesale market. Respect the legal framework and allocate subsidies to the most vulnerable sector, including SMEs”.
Other SME entities directly request the Government not to apply increases in rates for households. A request that was published this week in the newspapers was signed by associations such as ENAC or Apyme (Assembly of Small and Medium Entrepreneurs). They demand “a thorough review of the costs of gas production and electricity generation”, they assured that the energy companies had “extraordinary profits due to the dollarization of gas and electricity prices”, which meant a “transfer of resources from citizens and the productive apparatus to a handful of companies”.
Government-UIA meetings
The Minister of Productive Development, Matías Kulfas, set up a work table with Daniel Funes de Rioja, president of the UIA, to deal with these problems. “We are facing many cost difficulties, at the international level there was the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the rise in raw materials and energy, we must try to internalize this with the least possible damage. We are working on programs to supply ourselves with cheaper energy sources, such as the Gas Plan, and the gas pipeline that will allow us to have cheaper energy,” Kulfas said at a press conference, during the announcement of loans for SMEs. “We must try to absorb the effects of the international crisis with the least possible damage,” he added.
This Wednesday afternoon was the first meeting at the Ministry of Productive Development. In addition to the meetings to resolve issues related to supplies, dollars or logistics, the energy supply for the winter was also added. “If there are energy problems, we offer to self-manage the shortage at the industrial level, such as accommodating company shifts to mitigate the effects,” Funes de Rioja told Ámbito.
Source: Ambito
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