The Secretary of Domestic Trade, Roberto Feletti, is still looking for the milling industry to be part of a wheat trust. Yesterday, the sector chambers held a meeting, which again denied participation in this compensation mechanism.

At the price of a ton of wheat at US $ 450 at the international level, the local price is between $ 40,000 and $ 50,000. The government fiHe sets the value of that product at $ 25,000 and proposes to subsidize the rest (another $ 20,000). A ton of wheat closed Monday at $ 44,500 at Matba-Rofex.

“We reject the tool (of trust). However, each company is free to adopt it ”, said Diego Cifarelli, president of FAIM (one of the federations). “The meeting with Secretary Feletti was positive. But we have had this kind of experience collecting subsidies and compensation in the past (in the former Oncaa), and it has not been positive,” he said.

I don’t want to blame the secretary (Feletti) for what other officials (the Oncaa people) did, but We do not believe this mechanism can work. ”, he said. At that time, dozens of companies were financially complicated by difficulties in collecting these subsidies.

According to the manager who brings together the companies, there are other measures that can be given more consideration within the sector: “a direct payments to bakeries (there are approximately 35,000), some benefits -such as a purchase card for bread-, an extension of the Alimentar card (which allows you to buy this food) or tax relief for this product.

FAIM’s rejection adds to that decision took the Association of Small and Medium Milling Industries of the Argentine Republic a few days ago.

Feletti, together with the Undersecretary of Policies for the Internal Market -Antonio Mezmezian- held a meeting with representatives of the Argentine Federation of the Milling Industry (FAIM), the Association of Small and Medium Milling Industries of the Argentine Republic (APYMIMRA) and the Industrial Milling Chamber (CIM).

The Government defends the validity of the trust. Its creation was announced by Feletti in March, when the price of wheat It climbed because of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and reached 415 dollars per ton in the Chicago market. Today, it is at US $ 450. A year ago it was no more than US $ 250.

“During the meeting, milling chambers raised the will to participate in the Argentine Wheat Stabilizer Fund, if certain productive particularities of the sector are recognized and an improvement in the final price of the industrial bag of flour,” according to a statement from the Secretary. of Trade.

The bag of triple 000 flour of 25 kilos it sells for between $ 1,200 and $ 1,400as reported in the sector.

At the time, the Argentine Wheat Association (Argentrigo) raised criticism of the proposal. “The Government has no political margin to raise withholdings and this serves as withholding. This 800,000 tonnes of wheat they will subsidize the price of flour and noodles in the gondola. Obviously this will be paid for by the producer, because although exporters will deposit it, they will end up deducting it from the purchase price to the producer. In addition to the fact that it works as a lack of stimulus, the serious thing about it is that there is no attack on inflation from a technical and formal point of view, therefore it will not work, ”asked its president, Miguel Cané.

That’s what Internal Trade says “will continue to speak.”

And he promised to reach an agreement between the parties. “For the implementation of the Stabilizing Fund, work will be carried out one by one in each of the milling companies, as the intermediate agglutinating structures (federations, associations and other entities) do not meet the requirements to apply as recipients of trust disbursements., assigned to private companies, “the Government detailed.