Carlos Melconian he described the measures as insufficient that the Government would run to try to curb inflation and questioned whether Minister Sergio Massa is considering a candidacy against economic indicators that are the worst since 2015.
“These announcements complicate. What worries me most of all is the increase in the interest rate, because holding the rate that has pesos is nothing. And in terms of the liabilities of the Central Bank, keep throwing kerosene on the fire“said the economist during an interview with Radio Rivadavia.
Melconian said so “the drought was a knockout punch” due to the economic situation that the Government was managing and complicated “the ‘Arrive’ plan, which was previously up to December and now up to August”.
“The drought has been a phenomenal blow and I don’t see any short-term decisions to address the situation, to give the plan a genuine air and to build a bridge into the future for the transition,” he said.
The economist highlighted that initially the plan that Sergio Massa implemented when he arrived at the Ministry of Economy last year managed to “stabilize the instability between August and December”, but he underlined that “the drought has caused a resounding failure of what has been implemented up to now e the complicity of the ‘I look the other way’ of the Monetary Fund also fails“.
And regarding what transpired over the weekend about what tools he would use to try to curb inflation, he was blunt: “These measures today are to lengthen a tire that is already hard. There is no more rubber here”.
Melconian was surprised by the possibility that Minister Massa ends up being the presidential candidate of the Frente de Todos this year. «The minister, if he flaunted anything, was of his way, of his pragmatism. Obviously either he lacks reflexes, or you are not assessing well the object of your applicationthe drought problem,” he said,
“There is a dissociation between the variables that society looks at and defines, and the appetite for candidacy. If I look at the indicators of GDP, inflation, real wages, the poverty rate, in all cases and far worse than in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021. There is an absolute dissociation in terms of wanting to be a candidate and the results“said the former president of Banco Nación.
“Let’s stop messing around with ‘protest operation’. Who is protesting? No one here is protesting for anyone. The only protest operation in Argentina is stop messing around and deal with this. Assembling the bridge of patriotic transition for what is to come,” he stressed of the ruling party’s candidacies for this year’s elections.
“Does anyone in the governing party really think I’m going to take the field with these indicators and win?” he concluded.
Source: Clarin
