The Buenos Aires Minister of Production, Augusto Costa, said Monday that it is necessary to apply “all the tools” so that the population can recover purchasing power, within a framework of inflationary pressure and price increases due to the international situation.
“You have to have political will and decision in guarantee an improvement in the purchasing power of the population. Let it be a policy objective that income can beat inflation. In the previous government we have seen the opposite,” the Buenos Aires minister told Radio 10.
In this sense, Costa remarked that the Bonaerense Markets program announced by Governor Axel Kicillof days ago is a measure that aims to “relieve the consumer”.
“The policy of bringing the producer closer to the consumer had already been in operation, which is what guarantees that the one who produces has more profit, and the one who consumes pays less. We want to shorten the chain between the two, that had already been in operation. In 76 municipalities, almost 8,000 fairs or markets with 1,300 producers participating and what the governor did was announce the strengthening of these markets,” said the official.
He explained that in these fixed markets, products such as dairy products, fruits, vegetables and meats are 35 or 40% “cheaper than other markets, which gives relief to the consumer.”
Likewise, he indicated that “what has been demonstrated is that the possibility of the economy growing depends on the internal market being dynamic and driving, and for that, purchasing power has to rise.”
“It is very important that purchasing power rises. When one speaks of purchasing power one speaks of income and prices. We have a very exceptional price situation because we came with the drag of inflation from the previous government that was boosted by the pandemic due to difficulties in international prices and now with the war in Europe that caused essential consumer products to rise a lot in price”, Costa noted.
Thus, he considered that “this exceptional rise in prices merits a recomposition of income in order to recover what was lost due to these external factors that obviously influence how much the salary yields.”
