Limiting soaring prices without cooling the Argentine economy is the delicate equation that the government must solve five months before the presidential election.
With our correspondent in Buenos Aires, Theo Conscience
On Monday, Argentina’s Central Bank raised its interest rate to 97%. A second increase in less than a month, intended to curb the plummeting peso and inflation, which exceeds 108%. Among the most affected sectors, that of textiles, as RFI saw in a shopping mall in Buenos Aires.
In front of a shop window, Emmanuel, 29, hesitates to buy a khaki jacket that catches his eye: “ I’m thinking, I really need it “, he acknowledges. The austral winter is approaching, but for this cleaner as for many Argentines, buying a jacket is not a trivial decision. This costs 60,000 pesos – about 120 euros – that’s almost half of Emmanuel’s salary and barely less than the poverty line: “ Inflation has gotten completely out of control. A lot of things are increasing, sneakers for example: their prices have tripled, sometimes more “. Emmanuel laughs yellow. Last month, prices jumped 8.4% in Argentina.
” They don’t buy anything »
In the deserted shop, Luna, the saleswoman, takes care of herself as best she can by arranging clothes: In April, we increased our prices twice, 20% in total. Inevitably, sales have been affected “. ” Hugely feltadds his colleague Dalma. At the moment we have promotions, and hardly anyone enters the store. And even when they come in, they don’t buy anything, they just take a look around and leave. »
To stimulate activity, the government announced increased support for consumer credit, at the risk of undermining the other measures taken at the same time to try to curb inflation, such as the facilitation of certain imports.
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