“If the devaluation were the solution, the Congo and Argentina would be the world’s economic wonder”ironized Ricardo Arriazu. The economist stressed that the true solution does not go through the correction of the nominal exchange rate, but by Lower the “Argentine cost”.
Arriazu presented a painting in which it can followed by Argentina -with a depreciation of 110 billion. He did it within the framework of a dissertation made this week in the Cohen group.
He commented that “when people ask to devalue, borrowing an example of a friend, it is as if the petiso that measures a fifty meter said devalue me the subway, instead of 1.50 I will measure 3 meters, but of course, the one who measured 2 goes on to measure 4, nothing changed me.”
“What he should have asked for is a growth hormone,” he said, to explain that the economic equivalent in this case of growth hormone consists of decrease the Argentine cost through structural reforms.
After reiterating that the exchange rate does not modify anything, it emphasized that structural reforms are necessary that It is where the real problem is and that historically was never attacked and only now begins to face. He also pointed out that it is necessary for wages to recover, but not above the growth of productivity.
Forecasts for the economy that comes
Regarding macroeconomics in general, according to Arriazu, “We are in a solid situation, but a lot of reforms are missing.”
It projects the inflation of the current year to 29% with a growth in the economic activity that has been accelerating and that would reach 6.3%.
Warned that “The greatest danger we have is an international crisis or politics in Argentina. Those are the two dangers, the two black swans. ”
However, he considered that “if we maintain macroeconomic balances, Only avoiding the negative years, Argentina doubles the growth ratewithout developing all sectors in which we have comparative advantages ”.
He concluded remembering “I gave a talk in Tucumán that was called dreaming with a possible Argentina, and the title is no accident. It is possible and I will show him what would happen if we do things well done. And why dreaming, because this is the country that miss all the opportunities. At that time I had a probability of 30% success, and I said if there is a good agreement with the International Monetary Fund 50, then I now assign 50% probability that we can change our karma of relative decline. ”
Source: Ambito
