The Minister of Economy of the Nation, Luis Caputoanalyzes maintaining without increases the electricity rates and of gas throughout the winter, a time in which energy consumption increases, bills are higher and subsidies are also higher.
It is that the main objective of Government is to support the slowdown in inflation and avoid further impacts on the pockets of users because they consider there is greater fiscal space to do so.
This possibility was announced this morning by the presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni in his usual press conference. “We haven’t made any determination yet, but it can happen. When you have a fiscal surplus, you can dose how the weight of the adjustment should fall on certain sectors of society and not put a sword on their neck, so to speak,” the official explained. .
It is worth remembering that, in May, Caputo postponed the monthly increases in electricity and natural gas services through networks that the Ministry of Energy had defined to support the rates of transporters and distributors in real terms. In addition, the head of the Treasury Palace kicked off the increase in the bus fare and the increase in the fuel tax, with a direct impact on the pump prices of gasoline and diesel.
April inflation marked a slowdown to 8.8% after 11% in March, 13.2% in February, 20.6% in January and 25.5% in December after the devaluation. However, last month the Indec registered a strong increase in the public services category, which jumped 35.6%, accumulated 110.5% so far in 2024 and 311.6% in the last 12 months. The official intention is that the general CPI for May will once again show a decrease.
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The sustained slowdown in the pace of evolution of the Indec retail price index is an asset that the Government wants to maintain. This “priority” implies pausing the fiscal adjustment roadmap as planned.
The aspiration of the Secretary of Energy, Eduardo Rodriguez Chirillo, was to resolve this front with the implementation of a new subsidy allocation scheme based on a Basic Energy Basket (CBE). First it was going to be applied in April, it went to May, then to June and for now it is not certain that it will be applied. It is even analyzed in a different scheme for the medium term.
