Controversy in Argentina over price controls without agreement with businessmen established by the Peronist government

The Peronist Government of Argentina published this Wednesday in the Official Gazette a decree that sets price controls on 1,432 foods and mass consumption products for 90 days to curb inflation, a measure that caused controversy as it did not have the support of various business groups from the country.

In radio statements, the president of the Argentine Chamber of Commerce and Services (CAC), Mario Grinman, affirmed this Wednesday that this regulation will cause “shortages”.

“There is going to be a shortage. When a producer runs out of the product they already have manufactured, if that causes them to lose, they will not make it again, there is no way, ”Grinman warned in a dialogue with radio LT9.

For the head of the CAC, the price controls “never worked”, since they constitute, in his opinion, “an aspirin that calms the momentary pain of a very difficult disease.”

“If that were the solution to contain inflation, instead of putting it for 90 days, put it for four or five years, if it’s that easy, but it doesn’t work,” he said, adding that on this occasion the businessmen “could not agree on anything. “With the Government, which imposed” everything “on them.

The Executive of Alberto Fernández resolved this Tuesday to go back to October 1 and freeze for three months the prices of a total of 1,432 products to contain inflation, one of the main macroeconomic problems in Argentina.

The measure was adopted after a meeting with businessmen from the sector of production and marketing of food and other mass consumption products, a meeting in which, according to the Secretary of Internal Trade, Roberto Feletti, there was “quite a consensus.”

In response to Grinman’s words, Feletti himself wrote this Wednesday on his Twitter account that the Government regrets “this type of threats, which are not to a government or a policy, but to the Argentine people.”

“Neither threats to Argentines nor shortages. We come from a very hard time and we are trying to get ahead by all of us putting a little bit so that Argentina becomes, definitely, socially and economically sustainable ”, said the official.

“We will always be open to dialogue and negotiation, but not on these terms,” ​​Feletti concluded.

According to the latest available official data, persistent high inflation in Argentina grew 52.5% year-on-year last September and accumulated a 37% rise in the first nine months of the year.

In particular, for the group of food and beverages, an interannual increase of 53.4% ​​was registered in September and an accumulated increase so far this year of 36.6%.