Treasury Secretary Rogelio Ramírez de la O presented yesterday during the press conference of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador the plan called Package against Inflation and Scarcity (PACIC), which consists of 16 measures.
The first of the measures is what the government calls “stabilization of gasoline and diesel prices, reference prices for LP gas and electricity.” Ramírez de la O explained that this “represents an effort of the Federal Government of 330,000 million pesos”, which is not true if we take into account that on April 20, the head of the Tax Administration System (SAT), Raquel Buenrostro, He said that “the cost (of the gasoline subsidy) will be between 350,000 and 400,000 million pesos” and that during this year the Federation will transfer to the CFE at least 73,000 million pesos for subsidies to electricity rates . In other words, that the “effort of the federal government” is at least 473,000 million plus what accumulates as international oil and gas prices continue to rise, which will undoubtedly occur after yesterday the president of the Commission European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that she will propose to ban the use of all Russian oil in Europe.
The PACIC contains measures that will make the federal government stop receiving hundreds of billions of pesos.
One of them, the elimination of the countervailing duty on ammonium sulfate imported from the United States and China, will allow thousands of tons of this fertilizer to enter Mexico at dumping prices, which will not only deprive the government of the income from said quota, but will put at risk the survival of some domestic producers.
Another, leaving import tariffs on basic products and supplies at zero, represents a significant loss of income for the national treasury. During the next six months, importers will not pay a single penny when importing corn oil, palay rice, tuna, pork, chicken, beef, onion, jalapeño pepper, beans, eggs, toilet soap, tomato, milk, lemon, apple, orange, box bread, potato, pasta for soup, sardine, carrot, white corn, sorghum, wheat and corn and wheat flour.
The PACIC includes measures that are already being carried out, such as guarantee prices for small producers of corn, beans, rice and milk or support for Diconsa/Liconsa, and others that will prevent the increase in the cost of transporting raw materials and merchandise such as not to increase highway toll rates, the exemption from the Carta Porte for basic goods and supplies, and not to increase railway rates.
Some measures are difficult to implement, such as achieving a reduction in customs clearance costs and time or speeding up cargo clearance in seaports.
Some companies announced yesterday that they will not increase their prices for certain essential products and it will be necessary to see other similar measures that are announced in the following days.
The reality is that the PACIC will be of little use because a large part of the inflation that affects the country today is imported via food, fuel and other products.
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