The Secretary of Domestic Trade will resume this week the meetings of the table recently formed for the definition of a basket of 100 mass consumption products for stores and local businesses throughout the countrywhich will take as a reference the list in force since January 7 of +Care Prices.
Official sources confirmed that in the next few days the first meetings held last week will continue, with the participation of the Secretary of Domestic Trade, Roberto Feletti; the Undersecretary for Actions for the Defense of Consumers, Liliana Schwindt, and the Undersecretary for Internal Market Policies, Antonio Mezmezian.
The idea, explained the consulted spokespersons, is that this table allows work on the list of products that the grocers, supermarkets and self-service stores undertook to make from the 1,321 products that make up the +Precios Care basket.
Too the production companies, wholesalers and distributors will join in the preparation of this basket and the definition of their prices.
The sources explained that after agreeing with the large supermarket chains, wholesalers and the main producers of mass consumption items, they are seeking to reach a similar agreement to extend the program to as many marketing outlets as possible.
In that sense, In working with local businesses, an attempt will be made to agree on a smaller number of products than the program of the large chains, that it could reach a hundred items representative of a basic consumer basket, which supermarkets and stores will have to offer at the price agreed with the Secretariat.
In this case Differential values will be sought for local businesses with a single outletwhich recognizes profit margins that allow profitability to be maintained.
Price agreements are included in the announced agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -which will begin to define the fine print in technical meetings during the next three weeks-, for which this policy was defined as having a fundamental role in anchoring inflationary expectations.
Among the entities convened for this week’s meetings are the Argentine Chamber of Supermarkets, the Argentine Federation of Supermarkets and Supermarkets, the Federation of Grocers, Retailers and Supermarkets of Buenos Aires, and the Argentine Chamber of Chinese Supermarkets.
The sources indicated that the initiative responds to the need to intercede in the relationship between wholesalers and local businesses, so that small businesses can contain -according to the size of the premises- a minimum but representative basket of consumption, brands and variety. .
In this sense, it was explained that Prices Care has been generating very good results in large supermarkets, But these same products do not reach stores and small supermarkets at the same prices, so it is necessary to ensure that the agreement extends to local businesses to multiply its capillarity.
At the beginning of January, the Government agreed with a hundred companies a basket of 1,300 essential products, between store goods, cleaning, and personal hygiene, so that “it serves as an anchor to inflation”.
In the continuity of work, in the last days The Secretariat renewed the agreement with refrigerators and supermarkets for the Cortes Care program, which will be in force throughout 2022 and involves the marketing of seven of the main cuts of beef at agreed and accessible prices.
The first stage of the program will run from Monday to April 7 nextdate on which the extension conditions for the rest of the year will be analyzed, and will have an increase guideline of 2% between March 7 and April 7.
Regarding prices, the current value per kilo of cut is $699 per strip of roast; $749 empty; $779 a kill; $449 a skirt; $639 for the roast lid; $799 a buttock; and $649 a palette.
almost simultaneously, In the last week, the Back to School program was launched as part of the +Care Prices 2022 program, that establishes reference values for the school basket.
Before the start of the new school year, the basket includes more than 160 products from 25 items, that are offered until March 31, both in commercial bookstores and in large supermarket chains throughout the country, incorporating key products from the textile sector, such as overalls in all sizes, fleece pants and jumpers, and varieties of slippers.
