\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Tuesday\u2019s United States Chamber of Commerce in Argentina (AmCham Argentina) summit in Buenos Aires gathered politicians and top business leaders.<\/p>\n
In her opening speech, Mar\u00eda Schoua, the head of Amcham Argentina, said that agriculture \u201caccounts for more than half of Argentina\u2019s exports,\u201d\u00a0 that the country has the potential to become an energy \u201cglobal supplier,\u201d and that mining \u201ccould triple exports.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, from what people attending the event told the Herald, other sectors are falling behind \u2014 and Argentina\u2019s economy, under Javier Milei, has clear winners and losers.<\/p>\n
A representative for a mining company, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, told the Herald that he thought Economy Minister Luis Caputo\u2019s speech was \u201ccorrect,\u201d and \u201caligned with reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same person named 2024\u2019s Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI, by its Spanish initials) and a recently passed reform easing the protection on glaciers are among the factors that could boost the economy and attract investors.<\/p>\n
But not everybody was so enthusiastic.<\/p>\n
A high-ranking executive of a major food manufacturer, also under the condition of anonymity, said that his company is barely breaking even, working on a month-to-month basis, and not planning annually. The businessperson added that, while premium products\u2019 sales are rising, foodstuffs bought by popular sectors are falling.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dual Argentina,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Fixed costs, he said, are on the rise, but since consumption is dropping, companies do not pass them on to prices. The strategy consists of \u201cselling more and gaining market share.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t launch new products all the time, no matter how good you are \u2014even if you have the Coca-Cola formula\u2014you won\u2019t sell,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The executive said that the food manufacturing sector is urging the government to \u201creform the tax system,\u201d which essentially remains untouched.<\/p>\n
Aside from companies that are already doing business in Argentina, some that are considering investing in the country attended the event. For example, there were representatives of Grupo M\u00e9xico, a Mexican train and mining company, who are eyeing Belgrano Cargas \u2014 a recently privatized Argentine company that operates freight trains on three lines: Belgrano, San Mart\u00edn, and Urquiza.<\/p>\n
Milei\u2019s speech President Javier Milei was in charge of closing the summit. He gave a speech with dim light, no projections of his image on the big screens, and journalists confined to a small space without chairs in the last line.<\/p>\n
Scattered applause, mostly coming from the front row, crowned his jokes and yells.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He started by saying he would explain the growth of the inflation rate, which the official statistics institute published that day. Prices in March rose by 3.4%, the highest monthly figure in a year.<\/p>\n
He said that the rise in prices was due to a run on the peso that was due to his opposition in Congress passing \u201cmore than 40 laws aimed at disrupting the fiscal balance\u201d last year, which he considered a \u201ccoup d\u2019etat attempt.\u201d<\/p>\n
A representative of a company in the energy sector called Milei\u2019s speech \u201cgood,\u201d while a high-ranking business network executive said it was \u201cdelirious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mart\u00edn Kalos, an economist and director of the Epyca consulting firm, who attended the event, said that the speech \u201chad all of his usual elements, but tried to dress itself up as academic to justify what\u2019s happening with inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Milei also said that seasonal factors like education, meat, and energy prices impacted the rate. Kalos said this explanation is overstretched, especially since inflation has actually been accelerating for about 10 consecutive months, starting around May, contradicting the government\u2019s narrative.<\/p>\n
He said the president\u2019s earlier success in lowering inflation relied on two \u201canchors\u201d: a relatively fixed exchange rate and falling real wages. Once those factors reversed\u2014wages recovering and the peso weakening\u2014inflationary pressures returned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Attempting to reuse the exchange rate as an anchor, Kalos warned, is unsustainable if markets don\u2019t believe it reflects a real equilibrium.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeep down, he\u2019s avoiding saying what\u2019s really going on \u2014 that the disinflation process is in pause,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tuesday\u2019s United States Chamber of Commerce in Argentina (AmCham Argentina) summit in Buenos Aires gathered politicians and top business leaders. In her opening speech, Mar\u00eda Schoua, the head of Amcham Argentina, said that agriculture \u201caccounts for more than half of Argentina\u2019s exports,\u201d\u00a0 that the country has the potential to become an energy \u201cglobal supplier,\u201d and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":52964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,59],"tags":[96,86],"class_list":["post-52963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economics","category-politics","tag-economics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}