The IMF official. Rodrigo Valdés applauded the Government for the fiscal surplus achieved in January and February, but warned that the plan requires political implementation and improving the “quality” of the fiscal order.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. We talk about “poisoned” praise who left the message Rodrigo Valdés, director of the Western Hemisphere Department of the IMF. The words of the Chilean economist, which seemed to fade with the passing of the minutes, from the shadow of social decomposition skillfully camouflaged in the phrases of a technocratbroke into the Four Seasons hotel in Buenos Aires early this morning, as part of their presentation at the meeting IEFA Latam Forum. Valdés arrived in Argentina to meet with the Minister Luis Caputobut he did not miss the opportunity to raise his voice, using a microphone, and issue the warning to the businessman audience, almost as if he wanted to leave a record.
The praise is known. The IMF is enthusiastic about the “impressive progress” made by the government of Javier Milei in financial and even macroeconomic matters.. The public accounts, the reserves, the supposed “lower inflation.” But he insisted, once again:
“Efforts must be sustained to support the most vulnerable, so that the burden of adjustment does not fall disproportionately on working families.” On the sidelines, there was no mention of the injection of funds. A conditional was almost floating in the air: follow our recipe, and we’ll see…
However, there was something that the Fund added, in this instance, that is not precisely on the side of credit. The agency is closely monitoring the scene. You know that consumption is plummeting and that retail sales, which fell 3% year-on-year until November, lost 13% in December, 28% in January and 25% in February. That industrial production fell almost 4% in February, accumulating more than 7% loss compared to a year ago. That sales in supermarkets and self-service stores plummeted almost 22% and that economic activity collapsed 3% in December, but that January and February would continue at extremely low levels.
The organization led by Georgieva also knows the impact on salaries: In December, according to INDEC, the wage index increased by 8.9%, well below inflation for said period (25.5%). And although there is no January data on the Indec salary index (it will be released tomorrow), you can take the Ripte (Taxable Remuneration of Stable Workers published by the Ministry of Labor), which is an average salary among registered employees . Thus, salaries rose 14.7%, while inflation in the first month of the year was 20.6%, which results in a loss of purchasing power of practically 5 additional percentage points..
That is why Valdés’ poisoned message in reference to the enormous recession specially designed by the President and the minister and even to the adjustments applied up to now is not surprising. The Fund official applauded the Government for the fiscal surplus achieved in January and February, achieved “for the first time in more than a decade”, but immediately warned him: “The plan requires political implementation. It is very important to continue improving the quality of the fiscal order. And he emphasized this: quality and not quantity,” he said.
Quality in public accounts. It implies, again, talking about the sustainability of that surplus. And other issues such as the enormous spending cut in public works, transfers to the provinces and even the liquefaction of items that come from the State, especially retirements and pensions.
Source: Ambito
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