Doubts from businesses after the strike and tension in Congress: when will the economy restart?

No matter the size or industry, they are there unanimity among businesses in supporting the labor reform proposed by Javier MileI stopped in Justice today. The strike and march did not move the shelves. But the companies They allow dialogue with union leadersduring the strike they also negotiated how many workers would remain in the factories so as not to hinder operational continuity.

They are worried intransigence on both sides and fear an escalation. Hope is placed in Guillermo Francos, who sent the CGT leadership a message of “best wishes and hugs” for the end of the year. “The Government cannot play all or nothing with the CGT, it is dangerous,” they explained in a large company. The fear is that these leaders will be overwhelmed by the more radicalized ones, a classic.

In industry and commerce, however, the fight in Congress was read as one healthy brake on the temptations of total power. A consolation prize against the increase in withholding taxes? Milei’s followers give another reading and speak of conspirators who “allied to preserve privileges.” Were they referring to the reversal in the case of generic prescriptions instead of branded remedies? They didn’t respond.

But the initiative foreign and local laboratories united with the reason that it is not prescribed on the basis of the active ingredient but also on the basis of adverse effects in a country without official bioequivalence studies of medicines. They are powerful and convinced.

Others, like Toyota, were safe from double taxation with Japan, even if they subsequently applied, like the others, a 15% withholding tax. ADEFA, the automotive industry chamber, has warned that 50,000 fewer cars will be exported as a result of this tax.

Fernando Landa, president of the Chamber of Exporters, says the widespread 15% withholding on exports, which Caputo estimates at $2 billion, is a ““a mistake that implies the loss of markets and an increase in unemployment”.

There are those who emphasize the open skies policy, but they forgot to reopen Palomar airport, which It reduced very important costs. With malice, they target Corporación América, owner of the other airports, whose former executives occupy key positions in Casa Rosada.

And the governors’ lobby managed to get the result Banco Nación is half privatised. He was presented as an asset for his role as a financier of the agricultural campaign. “Lawmakers create great uncertainty regarding the political support needed for a fiscal adjustment like the one needed to avoid hyperinflation,” scolds economist Eduardo Jacobs.

By the way, some don’t make it to Congress. This is the case of wool, with sheep decimated by drought, guanacos taking away water and pastures, and pumas devouring them. In Santa Cruz there are an alarming number of 200 abandoned camps and in Chubut another 100.

A novelty is the return of investment funds to “test the waters for the curiosity that Milei arouses”. They make it clear that Argentina not only is not on the list of countries you “must be” in, but is still classified as a “border” country, the worst category, which prevents them from disembarking. An atmosphere of trade nervousness attracts their attention.

“To lower inflation, “The fiscal anchor takes time and the dollar anchor at $841 is not credible,” They slipped due to what they observe as a lack of convergence of the peso interest rate with inflation.

This week, the message from Rodrigo Valdés, former minister of socialist Michelle Bachelet and current head of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere, emerged. “We will not let Argentina fall into default, we will accompany it but there will be no new money”, he released to an interlocutor and reached the ears of Karina Milei, with an increasingly important role.

The few who have access to the President slide that with a look usually contains a Milei leaning on a triangle completed by Nicolás Posse and Santiago Caputo. The space for dialogue with other ministers is in frequent cabinet meetings.

On top of all this, supermarket chains, with their depopulated stores, are in tension with suppliers, increasing the production of their own brands, while the sale of bazaar items, clothing and household appliances has collapsed.

They keep in mind the action of Carrefour in Europe when it removed Pepsico products from its shelves, from fizzy drinks to crisps, with signs saying they were not selling them “due to their unacceptable increase in price”. The offensive caused an earthquake in the multinationals of mass consumption. The strategy has been adopted here by Coto for other brands and for Carrefour itself.

“The legacy is very complicated and the extent of the adjustment is violent. The activity is pulverized, there is a brutal drop in income. The recession is not free and will increase the unemployment rate,” says Marina dal Poggetto, an economist who is widely listened to by industrialists.

Dal Poggetto recommends “Look at society’s reaction to inflation and recession, see if the Central Bank can continue to buy dollars, “Be alert to the decreasing deficit and political and wage dynamics.” Faced with this painting, some recall the phrase attributed to Hippocrates and taught to medical students: “Primum non nocere” (the first thing is not to harm).

For Gonzalo Tanoira, Milei’s main asset is that “he campaigned saying what he would do and people, even if they are going through a difficult time, support him”. Tanoira, from the San Miguel citrus fruit, suffers other types of vicissitudes. With the excess of plantations, the price of lemons has collapsed, to the point that trees are being grown in Tucumán.

In its factories in Argentina, Uruguay and South Africa, San Miguel specializes in oil and juices, with added value and which are exported. It states: “It is thought that the export sector is the goose that lays the golden eggs that must finance the rest.”

There are sectors that are in a frenzy. Sergio Kaufman, Accenture’s head of the US Latin America and Asia corridor, says the demand for technology services is endless. “If in 2023 8 billion dollars were exported with a backward exchange rate, this year the figure multiplies. “We must persist in the right direction and social containment.”

Martín Redrado talks about other opportunities: “There are funds in the world to do this every initiative that moves forward and is green and Argentina is an environmental creditor with a weight in the energy transition and decarbonization,” he says as a director together with Nobel Prize winner Robert Merton in the master’s degree in central banking held in Malaysia.

From Cumelén to Villa la Angostura, where Luis Caputo usually spends some weekends and Mauricio Macri almost all of January, David Lacroze, pioneer of that exclusive area and leader in agricultural production and marketing, is betting on a harvest that, despite the decline in international demand prices, will leave 23 billion dollars more than in 2023.”“I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m realistic, it depends on how much people can bear.”.