BUENOS AIRES_ President Javier mercy This Friday he rejected setting a new minimum wage that compensates for the 250% year-on-year inflation and predicted a “rebound” of the Argentine economy after an even “tougher” moment in the next two months.
“I don’t believe that a politician can define a price by hand. It doesn’t even occur to me. Am I going to issue a decree setting a price?” Milei said, after the Minimum Wage Council’s attempt to increase the current value of 156,000 pesos (177 dollars at the official exchange rate)..
For Milei, the establishment of a minimum wage is “an issue that has to be addressed by workers and employers”, without intervention by the State.
The government announced on Friday a 311% increase in a School Aid Allowance for 7.3 million children, who will receive 70,000 pesos ($79) for expenses at the beginning of the school year, in March.
Devaluation
After the 50% devaluation of the peso, the liberation of prices in the economy and strong rate increases that will continue in the coming months, inflation in January reached 20.6% and year-on-year 254.2%, which led the basic food basket at 285,561 pesos (324.5 dollars), according to official data.
The president reaffirmed the economic direction of his government and predicted that within three months the country will begin to recover.
“You are going to make a sort of ‘V’, a first section falling, with the hardest moment around March-April, which is when you hit rock bottom and then you start to bounce, and when you open the traps (restrictions on access to dollars that has been maintained since 2019), the economy is soaring forward,” he said, citing estimates from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Argentina maintains a credit program for 44,000 million dollars with the IMF, which had fallen under the previous government and was revived by Milei as soon as he took office.
“The IMF estimates that if we continue doing this we can clean up the Central Bank’s balance sheet and open the stocks in the middle of the year,” said Milei, who this week reaffirmed that his promise to dollarize the economy is “ever closer” to being realized.
Source: AFP
