The incident occurred in a supermarket chain and in a powdered dessert manufacturing company. In the first case, the total alert signal was turned on when one of the dairy companies announced the second price increase for its products within a week. 10% on the Friday before the holiday and an additional 10% on Wednesday morning.
In the example of the manufacturer of desserts, custards and jellies, the tremor was generated by the invoice for the sugar. The price of the raw material rose 20% after the long weekend. already increased 122% so far this year (from $162 to $360 per kilo).
These are two cases, for now extreme, of what began to happen with food prices and what was already happening with other less socially exposed items: unscheduled increases, which are repeated throughout the same month, and the total loss of referrals.
The latest spike in the price of the blue dollar and the widening of the exchange rate gap triggered this even more complicated scenario, when the inflation of the basic food basket already exceeds 120% per year.
Los price list adjustments are replicated in different areas: the rice It comes with an impact similar to that of sugar, although in this case caused by the brutal drought that spoiled 30% of the production.
The yerba It has just increased by 9%, and surely there will be more within a couple of weeks, since the same Government authorized a 51% increase in the wholesale price of the product.
Collapse of the dollar soaring: strong increases in food prices.
The increases in this first week of May -the first weeks of each month are usually the most complicated in terms of inflation- includes adjustments in items such as videos (between 7% and 10%) and also in café (+17%).
Clearly, what is being seen is an acceleration over what was already accelerating.
Price hikes: not just food
A report just published by the Institute of Economic Research of the Córdoba Stock Exchange, based on a survey on the Mercado Libre portal, detected sharp rises in the prices of different products, in the last two weeks of April, once the exchange rate run was unleashed.
In the case of notebooks most sold through that portal, the top ten in the ranking, the increases started at 21.5% and climbed to 32.5%. In the sales ranking between position 11 and position 15, adjustments reached 56.8% in the same fortnight
In the heading “office equipment“, the price increases were 37.4% average.
In other articles, also linked in some way to the dollar, such as the faucets, the increases reached 19.1%. And in “lubricants”, at 17.6%.
Strong price increases were recorded in various sectors of the economy.
According to the survey of the Córdoba Stock Exchange, the average increase in these goods was 17% during the second half of last month.
These are items that should be marketed with the official dollar as a reference, even when they are imported.
What happens is that the Government has been limiting imports (or directly blocking), and that determination impacts prices, as it could not be otherwise.
More and more companies are covering themselves from a possible devaluation, or that the next import is rejected, and then they widen their margins “just in case”. It is a worsening of inflationary inertia, which has been worsening for years in Argentina.
The risk of spiraling
The new phase of the crisis means that the risk of a inflationary spiralization. For this very reason, Sergio Massa in person negotiates at various points the urgent arrival of dollars for the reserves of the Central Bank.
Negotiations in Washington face to face with the Monetary Fundin Brazil, with China and with the last-minute chance that the BRICS member countries will be the ones to lead a trade credit line.
Massa seeks to avoid a spiraling of inflation.
At this time, the possibility of Argentina increasing its commercial operations with some of its major partners (Brazil and China), in local currencies, seems like an express way of being able to “save” the use of dollars in commercial exchange.
Will it be enough to dispel suspicions of an imminent abrupt devaluation? It will be difficult to get out of the minds of operators and businessmen, when the BCRA reserves are very low. This is how the dollar prices in the futures market account. What is relevant, however, is that the Government can avoid the “discreet jump” of the exchange rate.
Inflation, headed for 10%?
According to the latest monitoring by consultancies that measure inflation, the food item could have broken the 10% line in a single month.
This was what the Orlando Ferreres consultant tested, for example: compared to a CPI of 8.1% in April, the rise in food climbed to 10.4%.
It is a dizzying dynamic, with no chance to make new mistakes in economic policy. On the contrary, even the succession of hits does not guarantee stability at these levels.
