With agreements with bread and meat, Feletti promises to move forward with the decoupling of internal prices
"If there is no decoupling, nobody works miracles. The international price is going to have a full impact on the domestic price. It is not possible to sustain a regulated basket price policy without decoupling," warned the official
He added that an Argentine cannot be told "that he is going to pay for the meat or bread he buys as they pay in euros in a restaurant in Germany. That is what is currently in tension and under discussion in the Argentina".
"I believe that the decoupling is going to arrive and it will be there. At least I think that at Christmas and New Year, we already have that assured, from how the information is coming to me," he assured.
According to Feletti, the agreements reached with bread and meat, two products influenced by international prices, allow "complete the gondola", by adding to the basket of processed products of +Precios Cuidados that the Government launched last October .
In the case of bread, after a meeting that Feletti held yesterday with representatives of the milling and baking industry, the parties assumed the commitment to keep both the price of bread stable (currently between $200 and $240 depending on the location) and the bag of flour of 25 kilos.
"Yesterday we reached an agreement with bakers and millers, where the millers are going to keep the bag of flour stable until the end of the year to get through the holidays, and the bakers also commit to a supply of bread at a stable price" , detailed today Feletti
"The truth was an interesting and very productive meeting where our sector was asked to commit to maintaining some stability with the price of flour until the end of the year, while they analyze a format that in the future decouples international volatility domestic market," Diego Cifarelli, president of the Argentine Federation of the Milling Industry, told El Destape Radio this morning.
Meanwhile, from the link of the bakers, Raúl Santoandré, president of the Bakery Industrial Federation of the Province of Buenos Aires, indicated in dialogue with Radio Del Plata that "if there is no variety of increase, in this case, of the main raw material, which is flour, the price of bread between now and the holidays will be strictly respected".
In addition to the freezing of values, another of the definitions of the meeting was to form a table to coordinate a work agenda starting in January, in order to "develop a comprehensive policy that allows for stability and reduces price volatility of wheat for the internal market".
"The commitment made by Secretary Roberto Feletti is fundamental, to set up a work table, where I even think the Ministry of Agriculture will accompany, and work for next year on a future projection, of a an agreement that is still under study, that it will finish carrying out and will be announced by the authorities," said the representative of the bakers.
Santoandré did not give further details about the agreement that will allow "helping the bakery industry", but he slipped that it may be some kind of "subsidy" or "subsidized flour".
For his part, Cifarelli considered that the decoupling of domestic and international wheat prices is a "complex issue" and minimized the impact of flour and wheat on the final price of bread since, for the representative of millers, the problem is "intermediaries".
"A kilo of wheat is worth $25, a kilo of flour is $40, and then a kilo of bread is $200. Obviously, as industrialization progresses, the impossible costs begin to be handled, which are what you have to work on. As to do so that intermediations are not so expensive," he said.
The bread agreement thus adds to the one reached with the price of meat, where, after an agreement between the Ministry of Domestic Trade and refrigerators and supermarkets, an increase in the offer of five cuts of meat was arranged last Monday vaccine, throughout the country, with prices that will be "significantly lower than the current market value".
In this way, in the participating points of sale (including large supermarket chains) it will be possible to obtain a kilo of roast for $549, matambre for $599, empty for $599, roast cover for $499 and skirt for $399, during the days 22 to 24, and 29 to 31 of this month, prior to the Christmas and New Year holidays.
January will be the month where a new basket of gondola products will come into effect, which will replace +Precios Cuidados, after its completion on January 7th.
The same, indicated the secretary, is currently in the process of negotiation with "exchanges of forms with the large food companies", and will contain between "1,300 and 1,400 products, with a revisable quarterly adjustment guideline and validity of one year ".
"It is a complex negotiation because it is point to point, hand in hand," said the secretary, and explained that there are "very strong discussions" in products such as mayonnaise where an international price such as oil affects.
