The Secretary of Commerce, Matías Tombolini, assured today that “there is no intention to eliminate” the Argentine Wheat Stabilizer Fund (FETA) and that it was decided “to change the mechanism compensating the demand and orienting the subsidy only to the flour to produce bread”.
“There is no intention to eliminate FETA,” said Tombolini through his account on the social network Twitter, at the same time that he considered that the tool had “partial results.”
The mechanism -known as the ‘wheat trust’- entered into force in March with the aim of decoupling the domestic price of wheat from the external price after the war between Russia and Ukraine began with funds generated through 2 points of withholdings charged for exports of flour and soybean oil, which are “distributed among the mills that participate” explained the national official.
“In this way the 25-kilo bag of flour bought by industries, distributors, bakeries and the like is subsidized”Tombolini pointed out.
The intention is to continue dialoguing with all the sectors without interrupting the ongoing processes.
The need is to bring relief to the table of the Argentines, and for that we need to work with tools that work and that so far have deficiencies that urgently need to be corrected.
– Matias Tombolini (@matiastombolini) September 1, 2022
However, he pointed out that “in light of the results, this mechanism worked partially”, since “there are cases of mills that charge for the flour that they sell to themselves to make cookies. This is not necessarily bad, but it is not observed results in consumer prices”.
That is why Commerce seeks to “optimize” the operation of the FETAfor which it was proposed “as an alternative, to change the mechanism compensating the demand and orienting the subsidy only to flour to produce bread, without stopping giving way to new incorporations of mills and streamlining disbursements”.
“The intention is to continue dialoguing with all the sectors without interrupting the ongoing processes. The need is to bring relief to the table of the Argentines, and for that we need to work with tools that work and that so far have deficiencies that urgently need to be corrected,” he concluded.
