Inflation
“Inflation, to my liking, is still high,” said Massa in an interview with the newspaper Perfil where he highlighted the results of the unification of areas such as Agriculture, Industry and Commerce under the same Ministry of Economy.
In the interview with Fonteveccia, he stressed once more that the Ministry’s plan is to lower inflation by 1 point every month and a half. “We started with inflation that was at 7.4% and in the first sixty days we parked at 6%, 6.4%, 6.3%. We hoped that November and December would be parked at 5%. And in January try to park around 5%. The November number caught our attention because it occurred mainly in food and clothing, which were the two most important deals that we closed, a very strong slowdown. That, in some way, allows us to show that November ends with 4.9% and that December, according to the projection of the Secretariat of Economic Programming, it would also be with the four ahead. Let’s see when INDEC publishes”.
PBI
“Maintaining the activity level of product growth this year will be well above four points, the three and a half points that most economic consultants and international organizations projected for Argentina. Well above. It will be well above 5% ”, he emphasized.
He also asserted that “we had growth in the level of activity once morest November of last year and once morest October, so it is possible to fight once morest inflation and order spending without cooling the economy and proposing painful adjustments.”
He specified that Argentina has a “historical 70%” of installed capacity in industrial parks, and that on average the level of activity “is above 68%.”
“The Argentine economy still has room to grow in consumption volumes, in production volumes,” said the minister to indicate that “this year” one of the main agenda items is “access to credit.”
In this sense, he stated:It seems to me that what we are missing there is a more aggressive policy for SMEs, and for the final consumer of credit”.
Wages
As for salaries, the minister stressed that the path is to lower inflation to achieve income recovery: “We are going to improve income distribution in a scheme in which we make them recover in parities, above inflation, to the workers. The worst enemy of salary is inflation. You can have a parity that can have the number you want, but if inflation is above, then our main responsibility is to lower inflation so that wages beat inflation and recover purchasing power.”
Dollar
Regarding the criticism of the multiple dollars that Argentina has, Massa agreed that “it is not sustainable over time” and assured: “we have to try to build a path that lead us to a regime of exchange normalization and access to the capital market”. The path outlined by the official is through the accumulation of reserves.
Common currency with Brazil
As the minister stated in the interview, the idea of strengthening unity in the region is being discussed with Brazil: “We need to leverage ourselves in a common currency, not a single one, each one with its own currency, but a trade umbrella in a common currency. That It is the idea that we began to work on, which Alberto also discussed with Lula a few days ago in Asunción. The idea is to consolidate it as a project for the entire region, inviting the rest of the countries”.
Bonus Track: your wishes for 2023
“Hopefully 2023 will be a year of debate, projects and ideas, and not miserable tweets. Hopefully,” he asserted forcefully.
In a final message of the extensive interview, the new Minister of Economy stressed the need to “have a constructive look.” “Let’s cover with our hands those who only seek to do harm, and let us have our eyes and ears open for those who want to build Argentina. There is something like pretending or looking for that if it goes well for me, no Massa is doing well, Argentina is doing well. And there are those who want to try to make it fail because they believe that I have failed. If today a measure that we take fails, it fails for the Argentine economy. So, let them help, let them accompany them, get rid of the hatred and dedicate themselves to being purposeful and constructive,” he concluded.