The Secretary of Commerce, Matías Tombolini, highlighted this Tuesday that the prices of food and beverages register a “quite significant” slowdown so far this month compared to October as a result of the implementation of the Fair Prices program, a trend shared by various private consultancies; while he warned that supermarkets that do not put up the billboards by this Friday will begin to receive fines.
The program sets 1,907 prices without modifications and a maximum increase of 4% per month for another 30,000 items from participating companies, in both cases until the end of February.
“We see a quite significant slowdown in food and beverages because this program was born precisely with the impossibility of accepting lists that increase more than 4% within the 110 companies that are part”, Tombolini emphasized this morning in dialogue with Radio con Vos, referring to the daily monitoring carried out by his area.
For this reason, the secretary estimated that November inflation “will be below 6%”after 6.3% in October.
The estimates of the Ministry of Commerce are in line with the forecasts of market consultants, which also confirm a slowdown in the prices of food, beverages, personal hygiene and cleaning, items covered by the program.
According to the survey carried out by the Centro de Estudios Scalabrini Ortiz (CESO), both on a weekly and monthly comparative basis, prices in supermarkets show a downward trend since the beginning of the month and, in the last week, they presented lower figures than the average for the year to date, which is 1.25% weekly and 4.97% monthly.
After closing the first week of November with a weekly increase of 2.3%, the index subsequently fell to 1.5%, 1% and, in the last seven days, 0.74%, a figure not registered since June past.
Meanwhile, the monthly variation fell from 6.83% at the beginning of the month to 4.8%, an unprecedented percentage since July with fresh foods rising 5.4%, dry foods 4.3% and beverages 4.7%.
Among the dry foods below the maximum 4% set by Fair Prices are grass (1.3% per month), meats (2.2%), jams (2.5%), powdered milk (3. ), baked goods (3.2%), cereals (3.2%), herbal teas (3.5%), eggs (3.5%), cold cuts (3.8%) and cookies (3.9%).
For its part, according to the consultancy GCL of the economist Guido Lorenzo, the fourth week of November closed with a rise in prices and food of 0.96% per week
This is a figure that, although it represents an increase of 0.34 points with respect to the index of the previous week, leaves the monthly inflation of both components at 4.1% in the last four weeks and a peak 3.5% to point in the same period, representing the “sixth consecutive week” of deceleration and “the lowest value in 43 weeks (end of January)”.
In addition, according to the LCG survey -carried out over 8,000 foods and beverages from five supermarkets-, the percentage of products with price increases decreased again in the last week of Novemberstanding at 17%.
The Fair Prices program
“(Fair Prices) has a strategic framework. When the minister (of Economy, Sergio Massa) took office, he raised a macroeconomic axis that has to do with closing the fiscal gap and accumulating reserves; and after that, a price program can be proposed to try to work on inflation expectations”, explained the official.
The program, which seeks to slow down inflationary inertia, it also includes 1,907 products –above the 1,788 originally announced- with prices that will not change until the end of February.
They are identified with their corresponding signage with a blue background and white letters, whose implementation in supermarkets began last week.
There will be fines for those who do not comply with the signage
Tombolini anticipated that, if it is not applied by this Friday, the establishments will receive “the corresponding fine.”
Asked about the time to place the signage, the secretary said that, “putting the posters in different gondolas throughout the country, is something that is not from one day to the next”.
It is for this reason that -he acknowledged- “there may be” establishments that temporarily use photocopies as signage since, in addition, the one corresponding to Care Prices cannot be reused as it is a different program.
“We are working with the chains. The most important thing is that the products are there because finally the price and the product are the most relevant”, he added, and specified: “We met with the French chain (Carrefour) last week and they are telling us that they are in a regulated process for them; while, for example, the chain that knows you (Coto) has the signage”.
Finally, Tombolini remembered that he already Fair Prices mobile app available for Android and iOS phoneswhich allows you to see the list of products included, reading barcodes to verify the correspondence of the price and an option to report a difference in prices, shortages or absence of signage.
Although the agreement does not include local businesses, as a novelty The program includes wholesale chains, so it would be possible to influence their prices, even if they do not participate in the program.
As part of the measure, the government promised to provide certainty in the process of importing intermediate and finished goods from the companies’ value chains, which will receive “immediate access” to foreign currency to pay for their imports.
Likewise, This Monday the incorporation of fuels at Fair Prices was made official.
“We are going to have December, January, February and March with a path of predefined increases: 4% in December; 4% in January; 4% in February and 3.8% in March, with the aim of continuing to build a path in the which all sectors contribute to significantly lowering inflation, which is the main drama in Argentina”, Minister Sergio Massa said yesterday during a meeting with directors of the main oil companies.
