The small business sector rejects that the federal government intends to fix guaranteed prices on selected products of the basic basket to face the problem of inflationsince, he affirms, it is in “price control” that they distort the market and what is required is their stability.
“It is easy for a ruler to impose ‘caps’ on the prices of popular consumer products from the comfort of a desk, without knowing the costs of production, transportation, labor and marketing that all merchandise has, but this ‘opens a false door’ that ends up generating shortages and a black market,” said Gerardo Cleto López Becerra, president of the Council for the Development of Small Businesses (WithComerciPequeño).
He warned that the remedy could be worse than the disease, since the path of ‘fixed prices’ and ‘subsidies’, although they want to call it ‘guarantee prices‘; that is price control here and in China and it is not the way to deal with inflation.
“Those of us who have experience of several decades for having carried out grocery trade, remember the harmful effects that the economic policy of the then president had Luis Echeverria in the seventies, when in his administration the prices of various products were fixed and the lists were published”.
“One of the crises that comes to mind was the sugar shortage, where merchants and businessmen were blamed for hoarding the product to raise prices, when in reality the shortage originated from the lack of production and the unaffordability of it turned out,” said López Becerra.
These types of strategies proved their ineffectiveness in Mexico when they were promoted by populist governments in the 70’s of the last century, he warned.
The businessman acknowledged the presidential effort to seek an agreement with the big businessmen and confront the inflationary crisis, trying to keep the economy from getting out of hand and affecting the poorest sectors as little as possible, but the strategy is to stabilize prices.
“The policy of price stability is achieved when small and large producers can invest, there is security to transport the goods, transport costs are cheaper, the supply centers are safe and the merchants get the goods in good conditions and also that the worker’s salary is enough to acquire what he needs, that is, when there is freedom, respect for guarantees, security and responsibility,” the leader of the small businesses established in a statement.
Furthermore, it is important that at this stage of Economic recovery Emphasis is placed so that the wages of the workers recover their purchasing power.
The president of ConComercioPequeño insisted that the supply market does not need fixed prices but price stability, that is, “that when the housewife goes to the market she can find the products she requires, and that, between one stall and another, the cost vary depending on quality.