The commissioning of trusts to decouple domestic prices from international increases and agreed baskets of Prices Carewhich will add small local businesses in April, will be the mechanisms on which the Ministry of Domestic Trade will continue to work to stabilize food prices and guarantee access to essential products.
On the other hand, This Monday is the deadline for the measure to roll back the prices of 580 products in supermarkets on March 10, after Internal Trade detected “speculative maneuvers” with price increases of 14.5% average in three days.
At a press conference last week, the Secretary of Domestic Trade, Robert Felettisaid “There is a deadline until Monday to roll back these prices”adding that “there is no reason or cost estimate to justify these increases.”
“These are speculative maneuvers that we are not going to tolerate, because they are against the Argentines and the Argentines,” he sentenced.
“We are going to continue working with the logic of trusts and we are going to try to stabilize prices from there, taking into account the effects of the war that may continue”Robert Feletti
On the other hand, in radio statements, Feletti pointed out: “we have to intervene in what we can call the inflation that is monopolistic, that the price makers do not set any price, and try to decouple international inflation from domestic prices, in products such as corn and wheat, which affect inputs”.
“We are going to continue working with the logic of trust funds and we are going to try to stabilize prices from there,” taking into account “the effects of the war that may continue,” Feletti assured.
The warlike conflict between Russia and Ukraine generated a strong increase in the international prices of commodities, both in oil and gas and in cerealsa sector in which both belligerent countries concentrate about 29 percent of world wheat exports.
Regarding the wheat trust, he said that “with the increase in withholdings decided by Agriculture, that is 350, 360 million dollars, it will allow the price of wheat to be stabilized at 25,000 pesos per ton, with which the mill can put the bag that is used to make bread, fresh pasta, pizza at 1,150 pesos, which had reached 2,000 pesos, is a significant drop”.
“Now I have to sit down with all the bakers, with the pasta factory houses and try to ensure that this effectively reaches the consumer and that this subsidy is not lost along the way,” he added.
remembered that “With the bakeries we had maintained a range of kilos of bread between 220-270 pesos; We know that there are 30,000 bakeries, that there is a lot of diversity in renting premises, location, that is why the range of bread is so wide, against the bag at 1,300 pesos.
“We can repeat that agreement and avoid a kilo of bread above 300 pesos,” he assured.
Meanwhile, he pointed out that “on April 7, when the Care Prices agreement is relaunched, there will be a basket of 60 products for local businesses, at a compatible price so that the Chinese store or supermarket wins, we do not want it to lose,” he remarked. .
Among the sixty products that make up the basket of the +Care Prices program in local businesses, which will come into effect on April 7, are Chocolina sweet cookies 100 gr, Fargo white bread 400 gr, yerba mate with Taragüí stick 500 gr , sugar 0 Dominoes 1 kg and fresh milk Casanto, among others.
In this context, Feletti considered that “the index (of inflation) for March is going to be bad”, but he projected that “the index for April is going to begin to show a decline”.
“If the tools that we are implementing for price decoupling work, the Careful Prices renewal policy in April works, and we manage to stabilize a basket of vegetables, I think that in April or May (inflation) should start to be in a more stable plane,” the official assessed.
“If the price decoupling tools and the renewal of Careful Prices work and we manage to stabilize a basket of vegetables, in April or May (inflation) should begin to be on a more stable plane”Robert Feletti
He insisted that “in the last 10 days there was a speculative attack” by food-producing companies and supermarkets since “there was no reason for supplies to run out or for prices of essential consumption to skyrocket,” and he pointed out that “suddenly increases of 14.5% average in three days”.
He considered that in the face of this “you have to be firm” because “there is no reason for a business plan, commercial, or profitability that admits that price spike, but rather it is to cover for doubts.”
“The attack on the gondolas, the export refrigerators that do not want to supply, speculative maneuvers with the flour, I think that everyone is playing and that requires ordering,” Feletti concluded.
