The recent report from the Argentine Chamber of Medium Enterprises (CAME) showed that activity continues to decline. In the first five months of the year it accumulates a decrease of 16.2%.
The recession, the increase in rates and the incessant inflation hit the pockets of Argentines and the consequence continues to be paid by SMEs, which, for the fifth consecutive month, see their activity plummet. According to a CAME report, Retail sales fell 7.3% annually during May and add up to an accumulated decline of 16.2% during the first five months of the year. Despite this, there was a slight rebound of 6.6% in the seasonally adjusted monthly comparison
In the analysis by sector, five of the seven sectors evaluated had decreases compared to the same period of the previous year. Only textiles and clothing and footwear escaped the general trend, although with low bases of comparison: the greatest annual decline was detected in Perfumeries (-27.8%) and the only ones that had increases were Textile and clothing (+14.1 %) and Footwear (+0.4%).
The data comes from the SME Retail Sales Index of the Argentine Confederation of Medium Enterprises (CAME), prepared based on a monthly survey among 1,251 retail businesses in the country, carried out between June 3 and 7.
Regarding food, there was a negative interannual variation of 9.4%, which accumulates 20.9% in this first semester of Javier Milei’s government, although price increases were much more modest than previous months.
According to the survey, 7 out of 10 businesses mentioned falling sales as their main problem. Other conflicting points were the high logistics costs and collection problems, which added to other expenses such as energy, fuel, rents and rising salaries, which complicated the businessman’s profitability.
Source: Ambito
