Economists have pointed out that food will continue to be an opportunity for Argentina

The local and global present is difficult to define: “The confusion is clearbegan Citi director in Argentina, Ricardo Dessy, who chose a phrase from the humorous quartet Les Luthiers to break the ice in his presentation at the 39th Annual Congress of the IAEF (Argentine Institute of Financial Executives), held at the Center for the city conventions.

In a moment of global tension, for Dessy: “The worst thing is the uncertainty we are experiencing. We Argentines are used to making decisions in unpredictable contexts, now it has moved to the whole world “, said the economist, who believed that each of the elements that occur in the current economy” separately would be a catastrophe and would occur at the same time. same time. time”.

In that combination of unfortunate events, Dessy highlighted: “Covid, the Chinese slowdown, the Fed interest rate hike and excessive liquidity; and the tragedy of Ukraine“.

“Uncertainty is worse than bad for decision making,” he said, noting that the common denominator of these different fronts is the lack of certainty about what will happen next.

Although the worst of the Coronavirus pandemic seems to be behind us, for Dessy its traces will continue to be present in the economy: “There are countries like China that have draconian policies for these covid problems. This hits two points: First, supply is taking much longer than demand to recover and this is creating bottlenecks in many places. ”

“So, there is a contribution to this global inflation that has to do with a restriction of the offer, which ends up adapting to pricesDessy added, explaining that it is difficult to find the correct diagnosis of the reason for the global inflationary acceleration, but that the injection of liquidity made by the United States to mitigate the effects of the pandemic has contributed to the overheating of prices in central countries.

At the same time, the slowdown in China further complicates the scene. “China accounts for 70% of the price of raw materials, “he saidjo and recalled that the management of the Covid crisis, a rise in interest rates in that country that put a brake on the real estate market and the next Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, where Xi Jinping is playing for re-election, affect the activity in the Asian giant.

Added to these sources are the acceleration of inflation in Europe and the change in monetary policy by the Federal Reserve in the United States.. “Inflation is not multi-causal. There is only one cause, which is the oversupply of money. There was excessive emission and it succeeded the highest inflation of the last 40 years. The last time this happened was in June 1982 and then the interest rate was raised by about 10 points and this is bad news for American countries. “

This adverse context for the world is undeniably negative for Argentina, although it may also open a window of opportunity for the country. “Commodity prices will remain high. I think there is more of a paradigm shift than of variables. The world of scarcity is changing. For our region and for Argentina we are starting to consider things like being a region of peace. “

“We have a lot of human capital. LThe major supply restrictions will affect energy and food. Argentina has both, but it also has peace. This is a great medium-term opportunity. The opportunity is infinitely greater than we think. We have to jump the barrier in the short term, ”Dessy said.

At this point, the former Minister of Production Dante Sica said: “We are moving towards a new geopolitical framework. Today, places of peace are privileged. We need a thorough labor reform. Agreements with the EU must be privileged. We can’t go wrong again. You have to provide certainty in the regulatory framework. “

“The political movement has dynamized the relative tranquility provided by the agreement with the IMF,” the economist stressed and anticipated: «The second semester will be more difficult than the first: the government will have to go to an exemption with the Fund. Today it seems that the government is almost finished. However, there are sectors that are overcoming the crisis “

Along the same lines, Claudio Zuchovicki said: “Today in Argentina the micro is much better than the macro. With the worsening of the crisis, there is less to do before it ends. An economy in panic never lasts long. . Let’s ask ourselves when to buy or sell but when to buy “.