Annabella quiroga
10/24/2020 5:21 PM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 10/24/2020 5:55 PM
With the blue dollar
already flirting with $ 200
and the exchange gap at 150%, the informal market insists on contradicting the official discourse that parallel prices have no impact on the real economy.
"You close a sale, you say to the customer thank you for the purchase and when you are delivering the product you do not want to give it up.
You do not know if you are making money or losing money
, or at what level of the dollar you are going to have to pay the replacement", sums up an importer of high-end leather goods.
Among the cocktail of homeopathic measures with which the Government tries to control the gap are the restrictions of the Central Bank that force to request permission to access the exchange market from US $ 50,000.
This increased uncertainty, since importers have no certainty that they will be able to operate at the official dollar while they see how the rise of the blue is fed back with that of the cash with liquid.
The consequence of this is that "there are no prices", as recorded in the market.
And without prices, there are no sales.
"
The summer of hardware stores ended just over a month ago
,"
Sergio Angiulli, president of CAFARA, the chamber that groups the sector
, told
Clarín
.
As essential shops, hardware stores were open since the beginning of the quarantine.
And with people in their homes, between April and August, sales in quantities of these stores increased 20%.
Angiulli, owner of a business in Rosario, said that now the situation is different.
"Today sales are more resentful, the economic situation has changed a lot. To this is added that there are many shortages and large increases, both in imported and domestic products."
"There are importers who tell us that they cannot get dollars, that they have to deal with another exchange rate that is not the official one. And even
those who have access to the official one also remarked
. The lowest increases in the last two months are 10 %. And they also shortened the payment terms. Before they offered 90 or 120 days, today you practically have to make advance payments, "he explained.
Apart from that shortage, Angiulli cannot find an explanation for them.
“There is a shortage of bricks despite the fact that they are produced 20 kilometers from Rosario.
There are no wires either;
we get that merchandise dropper.
The distributors say that the manufacturers do not deliver to them and they say the same of the suppliers of inputs. "
"It is also true that there are products that are missing because in the factories there are personnel who cannot work because of the Covid. We have lock manufacturers from Greater Buenos Aires that
are giving us a delivery date for February,
" he said.
Rubén Jara Ibaceta is the founder of Fan, a company specialized in the sale of
premium used cars
with dealerships in Pilar and Nordelta.
They market brands such as Audi, Alfa Romeo, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Land Rover.
"With the importation of high-end cars restricted so that the dollars do not go away, the used ones of up to three years, which are what we offer, gained a lot of ground," he explained. "But today with
the dollar moving minute by minute
, the situation is one of uncertainty.
To carry out the operations it is necessary for the dollar to stay quiet. "
"Before there were good sales, even when there was already a rise in the dollar, but
what there is now is a stampede
, you do not know where it will end," said Jara.
Anyway, Jara is optimistic.
"There are people who have been waiting for months to change the car. When the dollar stays still, whoever has the tickets will be able to see the opportunities that exist."
Uncertainty is also felt in day-to-day shopping.
From one of the main supermarket chains in the country they recognized that "
the shortage situation is complex
, especially in basic categories. It does not have to do so much with the dollar but with the freezing of maximum prices. The supplier prefers to sell to the traditional channel because there are fewer controls and then it can sell more expensively, "they argued.
Regarding the spiral of the blue dollar, they pointed out that "
in the medium term there is going to be some impact on the inputs.
For example, in the laminates used for packaging or in cleaning and perfumery products that have chemical components."
"The government is running out of reserves and due to a multiplicity of factors, including social,
refuses to devalue,
" said Walter Morales, president of the Wise consultancy.
"But the truth is that the social factor is also affected because
today there are companies that are not delivering goods.
They do not want to sell the stock at $ 80 or $ 90 because they do not know in 15 days what the value of that stock will be Uncertainty then leads to
a productive paralysis
. "
A work by Consultatio shows that in Argentine history "gaps above 90% tend to last less than two months and
are followed by devaluations of 25%
."
But if the period from January 1971 to November 1975 is included, "the gaps above 90% can be maintained for much longer (seven months), but at a very high price: larger devaluations, like the Rodrigazo" .
AQ
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