The tough dispute between Argentina’s Secretary of Internal Trade, Roberto Feletti, and supermarkets, self-service stores and the food industry over the 90-day price freeze established by the Government has, for the moment, a first positive result.
According to the survey carried out each week by the LCG consultancy, the prices of food and beverages fell 0.29% on average in the fourth week of October, although there are differences of up to 4.5 percentage points according to the items.
The reason for this unprecedented decline is the mandatory measure to roll back the prices of a list of 1,432 mass consumer goods to the public value that they were in effect on October 1.
“In the fourth week of October, the rise in food prices averaged a fall of 0.29%, slowing down almost 2 percentage points compared to the previous week,” LCG said.
In this sense, after rises of 0.6% in the first week of the month, 0.4% the following and 1.6% in the third week of October, the food and beverage index presented an average monthly inflation of 3.2% when also accounting for the contraction of almost 0.3%, said the consultancy.
The price survey was carried out on a universe of 8,000 foods and beverages in five supermarket chains, weighing according to the structure of the Consumer Price Index of the City of Buenos Aires.
For the first time since this study was conducted, there were more declines than increases.
The weekly result was influenced by the 2.7% drop in Condiments and other food products; Oils (-2.3%); Dairy products and eggs (-1.9%).
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx