The Ministry of Economy is adjusting the final details for the official presentation of the “Fair Prices” program and in view of this objective, it is carrying out “advanced” negotiations with business sectors, official sources confided in Télam.
The scheme of the new program will absorb that of “Care Prices -current with some changes since 2014, when it was launched- and is expected to have an initial duration of 90 to 120 days, covering some 1,200 products.
The articles that are left out of the program will have “a guideline of 4% monthly increase,” the same sources indicated.
The products reached by “Fair Prices” will be in the areas of food, cleaning, hygiene and personal care, for which the details are adjusted with different supermarket chains throughout the country.
Among the novelties, in a context in which “there are negotiations every day”, The announcement made last Monday in Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza, by the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, was highlighted, who conditioned access to a differentiated price of the export dollar for regional economies to those companies that join the program.
“Just as at some point we made the decision to promote the agro-export complex of the soybean value chain, between November 20 and December 30, all the regional economies that enter the Fair Prices program and that enter a of protection of local producers will have access to a differentiated exchange rate to promote exports and to compensate for the losses of regional economies,” Massa said on that occasion.
The sources consulted by Télam added thate “the app is also almost finished in which it will be possible to verify what products are there and report them in case the supermarket or hypermarket does not comply” with the agreed prices.
Users of the application will be able to report any irregularity in real time to the National Directorate for Consumer Protection, which in turn will communicate the progress of their complaint.
The purpose of economics is to give “predictability” to the price scheme, in line with the 60% inflation target set for next year in the Budget Bill.
This annual inflation is equivalent to a monthly average of 2.5%, a performance for whose fulfillment the alignment of the prices of mass consumption products is of significant importance, since they are the ones with the greatest weight in the Consumer Price Index prepared by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec).
Fair Prices will replace Careful Prices
Massa’s first announcement about the preparation of the new program was on Sunday, October 16, when he stated -in radio statements- that Fair Prices “is somewhat broader than the Caring Prices program and longer in terms of time.”
“When we start it up, it will be with a number of companies, products, with a work agreement with Commerce, the AFIP, Industry and a work agreement table between the unions of each activity and the companies,” he pointed.
Two days later, also in statements to the press, he clarified that the Fair Prices basket will not only include food, “but also hygiene, cleaning and medication products.”
“We are working on a program to improve not only the supply of products with Fair Prices, as we call them, but also in the identification”he then indicated in statements to Télam during a visit to Santiago del Estero.
Massa explained the importance of identification in order to prevent “in the gondola people end up having that product that the companies want to sell because they increased the price a little more.”
