After praising the first measures and advising
Javier Milei
in the shadows ,
Domingo Cavallo
distanced himself from the economic plan. "The best Minister of Economy in history", as the President considered him, had already raised alarms last week and this Wednesday he did so again during a virtual presentation in which
he predicted a brake on the decline in inflation in May,
he warned .
about the
"risks" of continuing with the flattened dollar
and estimated that
the economy could enter a "depression"
if certain measures are not taken.
From the United States, where he is giving talks, Cavallo showed that the online prices measured by his son, the economist
Alberto Cavallo
, from November to April slowed down, "anticipating" the trend of the INDEC index, which fell from 12.5 % in November to 11% in March (with a peak in December). "Until April 15, online prices fell from 8 to 6.5%, I estimate that
the INDEC rate will be 9.5%, for the first time in single digits
," he said in a talk with the CEO of Cocos Capital, Ariel Sbdar, before more than 300 investors.
According to the former minister, this path "excites" the Government and
positively influences the markets
. "Now,
starting in May it will hardly be possible to continue falling as it did until April
," he warned. And he projected that
inflation will stabilize "between 6 and 7% monthly."
"
It will no longer have a declining trend
, it is not what the Government expects." They hope, he stated, that it will continue to decline
and, therefore, they maintain the devaluation rate at 2% monthly
and think that it can converge with inflation at the end of the year.
"It seems very difficult to me to reach such a low rate in this way," he said, a diagnosis that he based on the expectation that
the incidence of salaries will have to be computed in inflation
, which will be "far behind." ", as well as pensions and those expenses that were "very depressed" due to the jump in inflation in the first months of government after the December devaluation, and that had been suffering losses in their purchasing power since before the change of government.
Regarding the exchange
rate
, Cavallo maintained that "
there will be a tendency to eliminate it gradually
completely towards the end of the year or the beginning of the next",
instead of in the middle of the year,
as Milei intended.
"That is why
the unification and liberation will occur near the end of the year
and will be complete, without restrictions on financial transactions.
I recommend eliminating financial transactions first,"
he explained in the midst of the rise of the dollar globally and the rise in the local market of parallel quotes in recent days.
The father of convertibility also marked his differences with the official expectation of a "V" rebound. "
Until the exchange market is liberalized and reunified, I do not see that there will be a
significant reactivation of the economy. A recessive climate will follow and even tend to be depressive, a prolonged recession, only after these changes and it is announced a stabilization plan, the economy will stop declining," he concluded in his presentation titled "a new macroeconomy."
In this context, the former Minister of Economy of Carlos Menem and Fernando de la Rúa
once again insisted on the need to accelerate the rise of the official dollar.
"What happens if the Central Bank does not correct the rate of devaluation and the inflation rate remains between 6 and 7% and the restrictions on the financial market continue?" he asked, and responded: "
The risk that for To be able to unify and liberalize the exchange market, they have to admit a strong devaluation jump
," he estimated.
For Cavallo, this measure can be an "opportunity" to launch a stabilization plan, but
it is also "risky because it can lead to expectations being disbanded
and having an inflationary impact" - as happened last December when the dollar jumped 118 % and inflation rose to 25.5% - and cause economic operators to conclude that we are once again experiencing
inflationary acceleration
. "That is not inexorable, as long as the stabilization plan is well thought out," he explained.
NE