2023-07-12 05:07:56
The Minister of Finance, Ricardo Bonilla, assured at a press conference that the price of Diesel fuel will not be touched due to the fact that it is in the middle of an electoral campaign and until the price of gasoline levels off.
“We are going to see if we do something with the Diesel, for now we are not going to touch the Diesel in the middle of the electoral campaign,” said Bonilla.
I also stress that it has implications of a different kind “it is the fuel for mass transportation and cargo transportation, we don’t want to have a re-impact on inflation,” Bonilla said.
However, I let you know that this will have to be taken calmly and with a socialization program regarding why the price of Diesel has to be increased.
Since when does the price of Diesel increase?
Has the end of regular gasoline come?
“40% of the gasoline consumed in Colombia is imported and we are paying for it at international prices,” Bonilla pointed out.
What regarding the taxi drivers and their request to freeze the price of gasoline?
Bonilla pointed out that “taxi drivers are large consumers of gasoline, we cannot freeze them or subsidize gasoline, what needs to be discussed with them is being done by the Ministry of Transportation and it is how they move their fares and work under the light of platforms, Today a taxi driver in Bogotá works with two or three platforms, so one wonders what the real taxi fare is?
He also let it be known that the taxi driver will be able to work on the platform and is doing so and therefore there are already differential rates, but he clarifies that it is the user who ends up paying for it “in the end, the one who hires a taxi is a contract between private parties.”
The Minister of Finance expects the situation to be bearable, in part, because 20% of the diesel is imported, that is, it already brings the price that is intended to be corrected internally.
With these situations on the horizon (more increases that are missing in the price of gasoline and the start of increases in ACPM or diesel) Minister Bonilla estimates that inflation in Colombia might close the year in single digits: 9.5%.
In the same way, it was ratified in its bet that, with a downward trend in inflation, the Banco de la República will begin, in September or October, according to its new forecast, the cycle of interest rate reductions, which would reach to 11%.
For the forecast that the Government estimates with inflation to be given, prices would have to continue on a reductionist path, without getting in the way of anything. Consequently, the panorama is not easy at all to maintain control of prices, because in addition to the increases in fuel, there is the ghost of the El Niño phenomenon, which might damage crops and boost food prices once more.
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