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Fair Prices companies agreed to imports for US$ 3,500 million

Fair Prices companies agreed to imports for US$ 3,500 million

With inflation that, based on the February data, could exceed the 100% YoYthe Ministry of Economy, which heads Sergio Massaput imports as “carrots” for the companies to sign a semi-annual price agreement, with ceilings for the increase in 3.2%. in solo 4 months ago, the companies that are part of Precios Justos agreed to import for US$3.5 billion and were one of the few sectors with an “immediate” approval period.

This is clear from the first management report of the SIRA import system, released by the AFIP, Customs and the Ministry of Domestic and Foreign Trade, for the four-month period between October 2022 and February of this year. There it is established that since the SIRA replaced the previous SIMI mechanism, there were requests to import for u$s 35,386 million, and the Government authorized u$s 27,335 millionequivalent to 236,717 SIRAs.

Thus, it is observed that imports with the SIRA regime increased by 11%, if October 22-February 23 is compared with the same period of the previous year. However, if fuel and energy imports are left out, they fell 4%. The economy advanced energy imports during the summer due to an improvement in international prices. In the monthly evolution, the authorizations are increasing throughout the months: in October they did not reach US$4 billion, and for February they were close to US$7 billion.

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The Government looks very closely at who are the companies that ask to import. Of the 21,885 companies that made applications, 19,048 were authorized, so more than 2,800 companies were left out of the MULC. Of those authorized, 86% are small, 11% medium and 3% large. The large ones, taken as those that import amounts greater than US$10 million, had better approval percentages: 98% between what was authorized and requested and 87% was in the case of SMEs.

The official report shows which were the sectors with the highest number of approvals: those that are included in the requirements of communication 7622 of the Central Bank lead with US$ 6,286 million, such as those of pharmaceutical items or goods for public works, such as the gas pipeline. It is followed by energy, with US$5,298 million, and in third place the Government groups the companies that are part of the Fair Prices agreement, which They had authorizations for US$3,501 million. In all three cases, the approval period is listed as “immediate”, while in others, such as vehicles, it can be up to 120 days.

The advantage of the “green channel” to which companies that are within Fair Prices have access occurs in a context where meetings began between the firms and the Ministry of Domestic Trade to monitor the program, one month after its launch. There is a question that hovers over all companies that still none have dared to ask: “Is the program going to be renegotiated with inflation at 6% and increase limits of 3%?”

Faced with this question, sources from the chamber of food companies (Copal) assured that the thermometer that will mark if they go out to publicly request the renegotiation will be the parity, since March and April is the high season of closures. “We do not want to make a self-fulfilling prophecy, but we are going to look at the costs, especially parity. Those that close in March will surely do so with the Government’s guideline of 60% per year, but I don’t know what will happen from mid-April onwards, with inflation in the first quarter that could reach 20%,” said an important businessman. Pablo Moyano, leader of the CGThe assured on Public TV: “I hope they close at 60% because it means that inflation is going down, but I don’t think many colleagues will accept it.”

From the Government they refuse to renegotiate Fair Prices, being that it was launched less than a month ago, and that it is one of the few price anchors. In addition, they held meetings with food companies from Copal and industrialists from the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA) in recent weeks to present the import report. Over there, anticipated that they will reject the import projections made by the companiesan excel document for all of 2023 that they make them upload to the AFIP site at the beginning of the year.

In these meetings, the number two of Foreign Trade, German Cervantes, rejected the criticism of the import problems that companies make publicly. “The business community says that we did not approve, but they made absurd requests, which even the cameras themselves were surprised,” said an official source. According to Ámbito, the results of the import projections for the whole year of the companies gave increases of 118% for food and beverages in the UIA and 51% in Copal, chemical products an increase of 28% and automotive 33%. With the projection of activity growing at 2% by 2023, the matrix should mark at most a 10% increase in imports. “We are going to correct those deviations”they added from Economy.

Source: Ambito

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