imports will be released in exchange for “Fair Prices”

The Argentine Government seeks to implement the Fair Prices program. He already anticipated that he will do it in one way or another, this means with the companies that join by their own decision, and with the rest later it will be seen what attitude is taken, and as of December 1 a new program will be released for try to contain inflation.

The attempt to tame inflation, however, will not be free and Economy will give in exchange its most precious asset: dollars, which it will let go in imports of supplies by companies. According to private and official estimates, this exit could represent something more than 1,000 million dollars in the four months that the program will last.

Some even maintain that this figure could be increased in the event that companies take advantage of the moment to add some stock, although Economy will surely keep an eye especially there, so that that extra in purchases abroad is not disproportionate.

During 2021, import payments from food, beverage and tobacco producing companies totaled 2,366 million dollars. Meanwhile, during the first months of this year they mobilized imports for a total of 1,840 million dollars.

In recent days, some of the mass consumption companies have shown a greater willingness to join Fair Prices, but now with the clearer idea that in exchange for that, the import faucet will be opened. According to what was discussed in recent meetings, Commerce’s commitment is that the amounts demanded in imports will be respected between December and the end of March -what Fair Prices will last-, for example, last year.

“The commitment that was set is that and we believe that if the government is thinking about doing this seriously, it will not be broken. For us, if they offer us regularization of imports in exchange, it is key because if it does not work for us,” one of the the companies that only this week finished defining internally what will be part of the program.

What comes now, then, is to refine the fine print of that contract, and see what the modalities and forms offered by the Government are like. Since there is still no definitive list of which companies will collaborate with their products, it is still difficult to know exactly which ones and how many they will be.

Anyway, the official idea is to reach at least 1,000 products, with the final goal of 1,500. In this sense, the companies received in recent days a list of the products that are interested in being part of the program.