The Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, distanced himself on Tuesday from the possibility of calling a PASO to define the presidential candidacy within the Frente de Todos and was in favor of defining a single candidate by warning that "it would be a very serious mistake" to expose the internal differences in a primary election.
When speaking at the AmCham Summit 2023-Protagonists of the next Argentina business forum, which takes place in a hotel in Puerto Madero, Massa did not explicitly answer whether or not he will be a candidate but explained that some context must be given to define a possible presidential candidacy and, in this sense, he expressed himself to resolve internal differences "indoors".
"I was fortunate that in 27 years I had all the responsibilities that in the institutional life of a country can have. Now it's my turn to face this process of the economy," he said when asked about the possibility of seeking the presidency.
And he was emphatic in answering: "It's not just what you want but the context. One is the relative, I have teenage children, when they are boys you can drag them where you want but when they are teenagers or adults it is different. " "A government, even if it is a coalition government, has to give certainty and part of that is not exposing ourselves. We have to fight indoors, this exposing ourselves in a primary to settle if the government has differences seems to me a very serious mistake in some way what it does is generate uncertainty, "he deepened.
At the beginning of his presentation, Massa linked the fall in reserves of the Central Bank with "the largest drought in history" and explained that "in terms of economic impact it meant that over 42,000 million dollars, we are going to close the year at 27,000 million some say 24,000 million, and that has an impact on the accumulation of reserves. "
He then spoke of the baskets implemented during his administration to ease the pressure on the dollar and decompress the demand for reserves.
"The Fund raises the idea that the drought affected the program and invites Argentina to rediscuss within the program," said the head of the Economy Ministry. "We are discussing the goals," the minister said.
In this context, the minister defended the intervention policy of the Central Bank in the face of an escalation of the dollar. "There is an issue that for us is central that is the intervention capacity of the Central Bank because the electoral years in Argentina always generate that I preserve or dollarized the portfolio generating this type of uncertainty," said Massa, who clarified that it is "the tool to generate certainty and tranquility."
The minister was also asked about the rise in inflation and said that his objective is to continue "generating incentives to lower inflation" but clarified that "the strongest incentive is to give stability to the bulk of the economic framework so that our industry has the levels of activity it has."
"The choice is that we have to take care of the level of activity, the great challenge is to solve the problem in terms of the purchasing power of income," said the head of the Economy Ministry.
When analyzing the economic outlook, Massa pointed out that at the beginning of the year it was raised that "the main challenge is the financing of the public sector" and explained that "this is a time to be creative, to be bold. The truth is that the first quarter that seemed like the bogeyman all the tenders had a positive net balance of financing. "
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