The federal government is «responsible» for inflation, the President of the Argentine Rural Society (SRA) Luis Etchevehere has said, confirming the decision by the G6 group of business leaders to demand the unconstitutionality of the Anti-Hoarding Act recently approved by Congress.
“By this time now, everybody knows that the responsible of inflation is the one administrating the macro-economy of the country. The economic authority is the only one that could give a solution to the excess of monetary issuance. It is the minister of Economy who has to balance the fiscal accounts to have a stable currency,” Etchevehere said in statements to media this morning urging the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner administration to “end” inflation.
“If the government ended inflation, it would make a great service, because it is something that works against all Argentineans. The only two countries that have high inflation (rates) are Venezuela and Ukraine, but countries in our region have resolved this problem.”
Queried about the unconstitutionality presentation against the Anti-Hoarding Act that the G6 group will be filing this week, the SRA head defended the legal move considering the legislation “violates constitutional rights such as private property or the association right.”
“With this law, the State has the possibility to intervene in the productive process, to set minimum and maximum prices and decide the prohibition to export and import,” Etchevehere added.
“Over the past time, 135 meat cold storage chambers have been closed, 14,000 workers in the meat sector have been left in the streets; we lost 16 thousand cattle products. We have had the two worst wheat sowing of the past 100 years and almost 7 thousand milking yards have been closed,” he said.
Response
Meanwhile, members of the Argentine Economic Policy Center (CEPA) responded to the G6 move to have a court declare the unconstitutional nature of the law saying that “defenders of the local economic establishment is linked to the possibility of losing privileges” due to more government control that the new legislation allows.
“The law aims at putting on the same level those who have privileges and those who have not”, CEPA’s Julia Strada and Hernán Letcher pointed out adding that it also “defends consumers and those small and medium-sized entrepreneurs that are left to foot the bill when the economic power moves forward with concentration policies or pressing with abrupt devaluations”.