The Ministry of Internal Trade will launch this Tuesday a new stage of the Now 12 program, in which there will be financing in 3, 6, 12, 18 and up to 24 installments, with changes in interest rates and without changes in the items included .
The current stage of the program expires this Monday, for which Internal Trade closed negotiations with the banking sector in the middle of last week to establish the conditions that will govern the extension of the program.
The banks requested an increase of 17.5 percentage points in the annual nominal interest rate (TNA) of the program, up to 42.5%, but finally a Annual nominal rate of 31% for terms of 3, 6 and 12 installmentsand of 36% for 18 and 24 installments.
In the new resolution, which will be published on Monday in the Official Gazette, the program will maintain all the items it has up to now and the financing will be eliminated in 30 installments.
“As representatives of the SME sector throughout the country, we believe that this valuable tool helps encourage sales in the midst of the economic recovery process”Argentine Confederation of Medium Enterprises
The program in force until Monday was launched through Resolution 753/2021 in August of last year, with the extension of the payment plan in up to 24 and 30 installments -to the existing ones of 3, 6, 12 and 18 installments- for appliances and computers.
According to the billing data and sales volume, it was detected that financing in 24 installments had a sustained increase since its incorporationwhile the 30-installment modality represented less than one point of the total billing of the program since its incorporation, which led to its elimination.
On the other hand, the amount will be modified in two capped items, which are Glasses and contact lenses that will go from $15,000 to $20,000; Y motorcycles, whose final price may not exceed $300,000 (before $250,000)
In the first days of January, the Argentine Chamber of Commerce (CAC) requested the extension of the program Now 12, stating that it values ”the mentioned plans, which since their implementation, have been very relevant to promote consumption and, due to their intermediate, national production and employment”.
In a note sent to the Minister of Productive Development, Matías Kulfas, the entity asked to “reincorporate 4G cell phones”, which will continue to be excluded as established in October 2020.
The industry reached the highest level of formal employment in the last 3 years.
In November, 7,800 jobs were created, and there are already more than 48,000 industrial jobs created since the end of 2019.
We recover the industrial policy.
We are putting Argentina on its feet. pic.twitter.com/V9JwEjSHen– Matías Kulfas (@KulfasM) January 27, 2022
Likewise, the Argentine Confederation of Medium-sized Enterprises (CAME) raised the request for an extension in a note in which it stated that “as representatives of the SME sector throughout the country, we believe that this valuable tool helps to encourage sales in the middle of the process economic recovery”.
“In this sense, its continuity is essential to strengthen this trend in activity at the federal level,” CAME said.
The program includes thirty items that include white goods, televisions, monitors, small appliances, computers, clothing, footwear, toys, leather goods and tourism services, among others.
The products and services purchased with Now 12 must be of national production and can be purchased online and at participating stores throughout the country.identified by the program’s poster in its windows, seven days a week, with all the credit cards with which the business is adhered.
Now 12 closed 2021 with an all-time record
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Productive Development, Now 12 closed 2021 with a historical record: the level of billing and the volume of operations grew substantially in year-on-year terms, 85% and 25% respectively.
The billing level in all of 2021 for sales of Now 12 was $944 million and the number of operations was 71.5 million.
In December, operations, boosted by Christmas purchases, registered a positive jump of 30% compared to November, with sales of $121 million especially in the clothing, footwear and leather goods and tourism sectors, which registered billing levels that were much higher than the pre-pandemic levels.
Similarly, the Christmas holiday boosted the operations of toys and board games, an item that presented a strong monthly growth of 149%, and was 29% above December 2020.
The Items with the highest sales in December they were clothing (29%), household appliances (26%) and construction materials (7%).
