The Secretary of Domestic Trade, Roberto Feletti, highlighted the implementation of the wheat trust and the incorporation of the basket of 60 products for local businesses that will be launched in Aprilwhile affirming that “we must be firm” in complying with the measure of roll back the prices of 580 items in supermarkets from next Monday.
“You have to be firm in this because there is no business plan, commercial reason, or profitability that admits this price spike, it is to cover for doubts,” the official stressed.
As for the wheat trust, FEletti said that “with the increase in withholdings decided by Agriculture, that is 350, 360 million dollars, it will allow the price of wheat to stabilize at 25 thousand pesos per ton, with which the mill can give me the bag that is used to make bread, fresh pasta, pizza at 1,150 pesos, which had reached 2,000 pesos, it 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,” Feletti added in statements to El Destape radio.
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,” assured.
On the other hand, he referred to “what has happened with the food companies and supermarkets in price formation which is the basket that we have most regulated in the last 10 days, I defined it as a speculative attack”.
held that “there was no reason for it to be out of stock, the prices of essential consumption would skyrocket” and that “suddenly this appeared there were increases in 3 days of 14.5% average”.
He considered that in the face of this “you have to be firm” because “there is no reason for a business, commercial, or profitability plan that admits that price spike, it is to cover for doubts.”
The secretary stated that “the supermarkets for some reason the previous week broke the agreement that we had been having from reject excessive price lists from trainers; Now it hasn’t happened and that fateful Thursday of 2.4% falls squarely on me, which is what forces inspections and the requirement to roll back”.
“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,” he remarked.
In this context, he acknowledged that “March’s (inflation) index is going to be bad,” while projecting that “the one in April is going to start to hit a decline”.
“If the tools that we are implementing for price decoupling work, the Care Prices renewal policy in April works and we manage, that is another interesting issue that I already have in the budget but we are negotiating with wholesalers, we manage to stabilize a basket of vegetables, remove that great volatility that was in January and February, I think that in April, May should begin to be in a more stable plane,” he said.
For its part, the Undersecretary of Actions for the Defense of Consumers, Liliana Schwindt, He said that “it is time to put all the tools of the State to be able to control” food prices and thus try to slow down inflation.
In that sense, he maintained that “after the President (Alberto Fernández) announced the war against inflation, in just three days there was an average of 14% increase.”
“Some increased by 14%, more than the increase in gasoline, with an increase in rates that has not yet reached their bills, the dollar has fallen, what is the justification?” said the undersecretary.
On the province side, The Government of Santa Fe announced which will reinforce the monitoring of prices in industries and wholesale and retail businesses, with the aim of avoiding possible situations of abuse, especially of the products that make up the family basket.
The provincial Secretary of Internal Trade, Juan Marcos Aviano, He maintained that “attention was paid to the possible increases in products of the family basket in the context of international complexity and the internal market.”
“The objective is to guarantee production, exports, competitiveness and the defense of the pockets of Santafesinas and Santafesinos”indicated Aviano, who specified that this week the controls began by the inspectors of the area under his charge.
“From Santa Fe we want to accompany the price correction and stabilization process, knowing that the private sector is a link in that chain and must provide solutions by correcting improper behavior,” the official added.