In a press conference of just over half an hour, the new Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, made the announcement of the first measures of his administration, as he announced last week. Massa was based on four axes of measures: physical order, trade surplus, strengthening of reserves and development with inclusion.” Today we are going to announce a set of measures that are the first, but not the last,” said Sergio Massa before detailing the measures he studied since Thursday.
Economic measures announced by Massa:
– Meet the goal of 2.5 of the deficit of the national public system that was determined in the budget.- The advance of the Treasury will not be used and a refund of USD 10,000 million will be made to the BCRA.- The freezing of the state plant for all sectors of the centralized national public administration governs. Decentralized enterprises will also be covered by this measure and each jurisdiction will have to take over those companies. “Companies must submit a statement of declaration of their plant month by month, and Indec will publish the follow-up of these declarations month by month so that they are publicly accessible,” explained the minister.- Subsidies: 4 million Argentine households renounced to use the subsidies. “Among the almost 10 million households that did ask for the subsidy, we are going to promote consumer savings. We cannot continue with a scheme in which those who spend the most subsidy take the most,” Massa said.
“Today we are going to announce a set of measures that are the first, but not the last,” Massa said.
– Special regimes for the agribusiness, mining, hydrocarbons and knowledge economy sectors will be promoted by DNU. The taxes will be discussed in Congress, but the other measures will be determined by decree.- Under-invoicing of exports and over-invoicing of imports: a registry will be opened for 60 days for these companies to rectify their position vis-à-vis Customs. After 60 days “we are going to make the pertinent complaints in the Argentine justice and the anti-money laundering unit of the United States, since banks of that country were used and therefore the headquarters of the financial domicile determines jurisdiction,” said Massa.- Promotion of export financing, the objective is to increase the volume and number of Argentine companies that export. With a program of credits at promotional rates and a guarantee scheme for first exporters, “we want to sell more Argentine work to the world”.- Traceability system for foreign trade, the idea is to have greater control and transparency in the use of foreign currency. From the request to the release of the currency there will be a deadline, date and authorization “with criteria of prioritization to the productive chains and health issues.”
Sergio Massa in the announcement of the economic measures of his management.
Strengthening reserves
– Advance of exports, with the value chains of fishing, agriculture, mining and other sectors so that in this way they enter around USD 5,000 billion in the next 60 days, which will swell the reserves of the BCRA.- Disbursement for USD 1,200 million with international organizations for current programs. New program with the Development Bank of Latin America with a disbursement of an additional USD 750 million.- 4 Repo offers for strengthening reserves and repurchasing sovereign debt. Three from international financial institutions and one sovereign wealth fund. These are loans with government securities as collateral and an interest rate against repurchases.” Today we had a first working meeting with the IMF to continue with the planned disbursements, which was productive,” Massa said.
“Today we had a first working meeting with the IMF that was productive,” Massa said.
Development with social inclusion
Retirements: on August 10, the retirement mobility index will be announced with a reinforcement to help retirees overcome the damage caused by inflation.” On Wednesday, August 10, with the head of the ANSES (Luana Volnovich) we will be communicating the amount and reinforcement” that retirees will receive, said Massa.- Work: business and worker entities will be convened on Thursday of next week in order to ensure a mechanism that allows to recover income in workers in the private sector, which includes the improvement of family allowances. A bonus is studied for workers who earn between 100,000 and 150,000 pesos.- Plans: policy of reorganization of social plans will be carried out during the next 12 months, focusing on 3 axes: return to the mercWork, strengthening of cooperatives and protection in case of situations of vulnerability. On August 15, an audit begins to be carried out by the universities. Whoever does not comply with it, will receive the suspension of the plan. In parallel, the settlement will be crossed with the ANSES databases. Our idea of the country is that the plan is the emergency, and the work is permanent. Whoever has a plan will enter a company and the first year will maintain the base payment of the plan, the company will pay the difference in salary, the ART and the social work; at the end of that year the worker will decide whether to continue in employment or to collect the plan again, taking into account that it is a registered job,” Massa explained. – Credit: credit programs will be unified in a single line, which is called Crédito Argentino, where all credit promotion policies for the productive sectors, SMEs and commerce will converge, a program for a total of $400 billion. In turn, Massa announced other measures such as the tender for the second section of the Nestor Kirchner gas pipeline; the implementation of a program to train 70,000 new programmers in the next 12 months; a voluntary exchange for the maturities in pesos of the next 90 days, which will end on Tuesday, for which there are already “accession commitments of more than 60%”.
Alberto Fernández taking the oath of office to Sergio Massa as Minister of Economy.
Since he was appointed as Minister of Economy, Massa formed the work team that will accompany him during his tenure at the Treasury Palace, which unified the areas of Economy, Productive Development and Agriculture.Within the Secretariats, Massa appointed Raúl Rigo in Finance; Production to José Ignacio de Mendiguren; Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries to Juan José Bahillo; Trade to Matías Tombolini; Federal Development and Competitiveness Planning to Jorge Neme; In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture appointed Jorge Solmi in charge of the Federal Coordination Unit and Gabriel Delgado as head of the Unit for the Opening of New Protein Markets. On the other hand, Sandra Mayol will go to the Undersecretary of Institutional Affairs; and Sabrina Vettel and Katia Blanc in strategic areas of the Secretariat.In turn, he ratified the management of Marco Lavagna at the head of the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec) and determined that Daniel Marx will be part of the committee for the development of the capital market and monitoring of the public debt. There are still strategic areas that remain to be occupied, such as the position of Deputy Minister of Economy and the Energy team. When asked about the names, Sergio Massa said: “Tomorrow we will continue with the presentation of the team, today I think the measures are important.”
