In parallel, this week the Government regulated the formation of the Observatory, after eight years of being created through Law 26,992. Last Tuesday the Secretary of Commerce, headed by Matthias Tombolini, presented this body to associations, ministries and unions, whose objective is to “monitor, survey and systematize the prices and availability of inputs, goods and services that are produced, marketed and provided in the territory of the Nation”.
“We very much agree that the Observatory works because its mission is generate reports on the economic issue of companies and on whether or not there is distortion in prices“, said in dialogue with Télam the president of the Users and Consumers Defense Association (Deuco), Pedro Alberto Bussetti.
Regarding the formation of prices, he maintained that the “problem is structural” and was generated in the “decade of the ’90s, when the distribution chain was modified“, and that until that decade “the factories, Terrabusi, Bagley, Molino and Federal reached the trade directly.” “This process was interrupted with the arrival of the large supermarket chains. where they absorbed the aforementioned companies, settling in oligopolies“, he explained.
The products that increased the most in recent months were “24 of the 51 measured by INDECamong them sugar that increased 204% in nine months and oil with 140%, much more than inflation,” he said.
The price analysis process ranges from the product leaving the factory -including packaging- until it reaches the gondolathen produces a report which is delivered to the Secretary of Commerce, “who has to take the measure based on the reality that the Observatory is showing him,” said the president of Deuco.
The Observatory will request information on costs and quantities from producing and trading companies through the Ministry of Commerce.
In that same sense, the president of the Association of Consumers and Users of Argentina (Acuda), Ricardo Julio Espinosa, maintained that from their space “they were asking for the Observatory” because there is “much dispersion of prices”, and that in “the last three months the increases were very pronounced”.
“The truth that we always find some excuses or arguments like the dollar, the war in Ukraine or the drought, which is realbut the problem is with consumers who have to go every day to buy products,” he added.
For his part, the president of the Association for the Defense of User and Consumer Rights (Adduc), Osvaldo Héctor Bassanostressed that this Observatory is a way of saying to manufacturers and marketers “well, gentlemen, collaborate! Otherwise you will be penalized!”
The law that created the Observatory provides sanctions through fines for those who commit infractions.
The consumer price index in October marked a monthly increase of 6.3% and a variation of 88% compared to the same month of 2021increasing food and beverages by 6.2% per month highlighting the rise in prices of vegetables, tubers and legumes; and fruits, as reported by INDEC.
Bassano, regarding the inflationsaid that “it is generated by different monopolies that have been concentrating And this was accentuated from 2015 to 2019, when it finished concentrating on large monopolies.”
In addition, the president of Adduc said that the Observatory will not only study underlying costsbut also if the companies incur in the practice of collecting stock of productswhich is used from “speculative way to increase prices”.
“The Observatory will not solve inflation problemsbut rather it will moderate it,” he said.
Regarding the Value chains production, maintained that they are made up of “stocks, logistics, raw materials, etc.”, and that It’s not just “labor cost” which would ultimately be the “ultimate value chain problem” in price formation.
Source: Ambito
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