With some delay, the Government finally
made official yesterday a new basket of 1,974 basic items
(food, drinks, toiletries and cleaning),
which will have fixed prices until the end of June
.
The list is part of the second stage of Fair Prices, and was finalized on Tuesday night, after intense negotiations with 108 companies in the mass consumption industry.
The novelty is that about 65% of the products were already in the previous "frozen" basket, which was launched in November of last year.
To compensate for the delay in prices
of the last 3 months of high inflation and guarantee its continuity in the program, the Ministry of Commerce, led by Matías Tombolini,
authorized "exceptional" increases of between 4 and 9%
, business sources agree.
The official list of the basket with fixed prices was published yesterday at noon on the website of the Ministry of Commerce.
It is considered
one of the pillars of this new amplified version of Fair Prices
, which since February
sets a ceiling on monthly increases of 3.2%
for 49,832 products in 15 categories (mass consumption, footwear, cell phones, sports shoes, materials for construction and textiles, among others).
Yesterday afternoon, in radio statements Tombolini specified that
an agreement was reached with 532 companies
, ("on Friday there were 480", as he clarified), which
will have priority to access the dollars from the reserves
(the cheapest in the market ) to pay for imports.
However, there is still a long way to go to clear up doubts about the package of measures announced this Friday by the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, in a well-attended event at the CCK in front of executives, businessmen, trade unionists and municipal officials.
There he invoked the need to trace "a price path" to combat inflation through Fair Prices.
Without going any further, the new basket with frozen prices became known hours after
Clarín
published exclusively that the relaunch of Fair Prices
generated doubts and confusion in companies and commercial chains
, due to the lack of precision about the scope and the goods that make up the program.
They say that they have not yet signed anything and that, in some cases, they are even unaware of the products reached by the program.
From the Government they explain that, in broad strokes, the agreements are practically closed and that
all that remains is to formalize the agreements with the companies, with the signature of rigor
.
"As there are many items that were added, that can take between 15 and 20 days," they apologized.
The same happens with the products of the new basket with fixed prices: "The chains have already been informed but the products will be arriving on the gondolas throughout this week," explained an official source.
However, the main concern of suppliers is not that universe, but the new guideline for maximum increases for all products, which fell from 4 to 3.2%.
The concern has to do with the rise in prices in recent weeks.
In December, inflation was 5.1% and
in January it would climb another notch
, despite the efforts and regulations to establish reference prices, as stated by Massa and Tombolini.
In the first month of the year, the cost of living rose to 7.3% in Capital, the highest level since July 2022. In the GBA, according to Ecolatina, prices on average increased 6.4%.
Next week, INDEC will release the data at the national level, which according to the consultants will fluctuate between 5.5% and 6%, which contrasts with Massa's own prediction (less than 4% in April) and the pattern of 60% for the entire year established in the Budget Law.
look too
Fair Prices: they publish the new list with almost 2,000 "frozen" products
look too
Fair Prices: doubts and confusion with the agreement, the lists and the price gap
