Expand Fair Prices
On Friday at noon, Massa announced on the CCK the launch of Fair Prices, a program that replaces Careful Prices. Although he anticipated that an agreement had been reached for 1,700 products to maintain the same price for four months, he anticipated that this week they expect to exceed 2,000. These are food, beverages, cleaning products, and personal hygiene. Along the same lines, as of Friday the agreement covered 102 companies, and in the coming days they expect 125 signatures. The rest of the more than 30,000 gondola goods that remain outside the freeze will have a monthly increase cap of 4%.
On the other hand, Massa anticipated that they will seek to reach agreements with the first part of the value chain: “This week we began to work on the price agreements for inputs released. Because if the food that comes with us undergoes drastic modifications in polyethylene, aluminum or cardboard, they will find themselves facing a contradiction”.
In dialogue with Ámbito, during the UIA industrial conference, Javier Madanes Quintanillaowner of Aluar, said that the calls have already started. In order to accept, he assured that the variable goes through the dollar: “It would imply having a predictability of the exchange rate. If you tell me that we are going to a devaluation guideline like the current one for 180 days and a sacrifice of 3 points must be made to sustain this, we are absolutely ready, not only us. But if the variables are altered, it will be difficult”.
doubts and complaints
The companies that enter into the price agreement for four months have doubts about how the Government is going to fulfill the commitment to guarantee access to the official dollar to be able to import, one of the great “carrots” that Tombolini put on the table. There are cases where the same food company has problems importing a specific input, which have already led to stoppages of production lines in a US multinational.
However, in others it is not the food company that imports directly, but its industrial suppliers, who are not part of the food price agreement. In Friday’s speech, Massa promised: “Feel free to denounce us if we fail to fulfill any of our responsibilities.” In fact, Massa joined Diego Coatz, executive director of the UIA, to analyze together with Commerce, AFIP and Customs what are the “critical situations” of imports. As Scope was able to find out, Coatz will take the emergencies that have previously passed the filter of the cameras. In the case of food, that of Copal.
In any case, far from making complaints, at the moment companies prefer to enter with a product at Fair Prices. Companies that on Thursday morning at the UIA conference had not entered, at the end of the night after Massa’s speech they had what product they had entered. “We prefer to sign and maintain the dialogue, we do not want to enter blacklists”they told from a company.
In fact, beyond the fact that imports are today the main complaint and urgency of the companies, at the moment there has only been one important chamber to make a public claim, through a strong statement. It was the Chamber of Mining Entrepreneurs (Caem). From the other chambers, they suspect that they did it more because of an internal dispute, since there were changes in the executive management.
Even so, as Ámbito was able to find out, the food companies that directly supply Chinese supermarkets or sell to distributors have already anticipated that there will be price lists with greater variations there. It is that there, where two thirds of consumption pass, price agreements do not arrive. “In the lines that there are losses, the product will be temporarily discontinued,” they told a company.
Another of the doubts is in the regional economies, where Massa promised a “differential dollar” for exports for those who enter at Fair Prices. Companies in the wine sector are wondering if they have to enter the 800 wineries that exist in Argentina, or if the most important one enters with some product and they could all access what could be a “Malbec dollar”.
Source: Ambito
David William is a talented author who has made a name for himself in the world of writing. He is a professional author who writes on a wide range of topics, from general interest to opinion news. David is currently working as a writer at 24 hours worlds where he brings his unique perspective and in-depth research to his articles, making them both informative and engaging.
