Government accelerates deal to freeze between 1,200 and 1,500 basic items from leading brands for 120 days. In recent days, including this weekend, the Secretary of Commerce, Matías Tombolini, has approached positions at consumer companies to build fair pricesa program that would be made official at the end of this week or early next, according to official sources.
The timing of the announcement is not naive. Tombolini hopes to announce it shortly before or after Indec announces October inflationwhich will be around 6.5% according to private consultants, which implies a rebound from 6.2% the previous month. The idea of the government is to launch “fair prices” “as soon as possible” once the product and price list has been defined with the producers.
The scheme plans to agree with major food, beverage, toiletries and cleaning suppliers, including Molinos, Mastellone, Arcor, General Deheza Oil, Quilmes and Coca-Cola. In these days, there have also been advances with wholesaler chains and large supermarketswhose gondolas will be – in theory – under the control of the consumer. How? Through an app (under development) that will allow you to check prices online and report non-conformities with a virtual button on the application.
On the recommendation of the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, Tombolini coordinates the last details with the companies. In exchange for freezing prices for 4 months in a context of high inflation, the government promises to give the necessary dollars so that they can import “Indispensable inputs to ensure the production of food and drink”, underline from the private sector.
In general, they add “there is the will to support”. However, they clarify that some aspects of Fair Price remain to be defined, beyond the products and formats that will make up the new program. For example, the prices to be frozen are not yet clear.
Companies ask for an initial 4% adjustment before launch and one at the end. The aspiration of the government is that it is valid from November 1st to March 1st“but it can be earlier”, they clarify.
There is another problem to be solved. Sources familiar with the negotiation agree that it is possible the 452 products that make up care prices today are part of fair prices. That is to say, that both programs are merged or that the first is eliminated, which was created in 2014 under the management of former Economy Minister Axel Kicillof and former Secretary of Commerce Augusto Costa.
The block was proposed by Cristina Kirchner herself, worried about the acceleration of inflation. Last month the vice president warned of the “sharp increase in food” and the profit margins of food companies, which had to be “more precise and effective”. Massa himself refused it. He said the freezing didn’t fix anything and that “it was like stepping on a pipe, but the water is there”.
Hours later, Massa announced that they were working on “a stabilization plan between December and March” to freeze prices “in the hottest months of the year”. Later, Tombolini specified that an agreement was sought “with 20 or 30 large pricing companies accounting for 65% of mass consumption“to” build predictability in a gondola “.
In addition, the Secretary of Commerce has requested supermarkets to refuse increases of more than 4% per month for those products that are not included in the Careful Pricing program and in the future Fair Pricing basket. That is to say, of all the rest of the articles that are not subject to state regulation.
When the chains raised concerns about possible shortages if they didn’t accept the prices from their suppliers, Tombolini promised to fix it in person. “They send me a WhatsApp and I solve it”, he threatened.
Source: Clarin
