MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: Massa hints announcements will be made after PASO elections

The minister and presidential candidate declined to elaborate citing electoral restrictions

Argentina's Economy Minister and presidential candidate Sergio Massa Friday announced that after the Aug. 13 Mandatory, Simultaneous, and Open Primary (PASO) elections new measures will be enacted regarding pensions and lump sums to improve incomes and help people cope with the rampant inflation.

Massa also hinted that there would be taxation adjustments to earnings and retirement funds, but declined to elaborate citing electoral restrictions.

“In the short term, there are three central things. One with the improvement of income, we have to solve the issue of earnings that will improve the salary of many; solve the issue of the lump sum because it will solve especially the situation of the lowest salaries and we have to have resources to strengthen the situation of retirees,” Massa said.

He also heralded tougher monitoring of the local currency exchange market after the “blue” (a euphemism for “black market”) US dollar traded at AR$ $580 at some point Friday but fell back and closed at around AR$ 574. Massa argued that the “blue dollar” is “a market in which two or three rogues make noise” and that is why “we have decided to intervene in the financial markets” in order not to allow any more speculations.

In addition, he assured that former President Mauricio Macri ”owes an explanation to the Argentines for the US$ 45 billion debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that was taken in a minute and a half and still today is the heaviest anchor that Argentina faces.“

”Argentines were left without the dollars and with the debt,“ insisted Massa, who also noted that this money ”did not remain in schools, hospitals, roads or new companies that came to Argentina, but in the accounts of some funds that came to swindle.“

He also said electricity and cooking gas ”will be cheaper“ in the next few years, when the price of fuel will go down due to the supply from Vaca Muerta, which will replace imports of liquefied gas.

The candidate called for ”fiscal order“ and also a surplus in the trade balance, recalling that ”the best moments of the Argentines were when we sold more than we bought” abroad.