Prat Gay: ‘I don’t think stocks can be removed overnight this time’

For Alphonse Prat-Gay, who was Prime Minister of Finance under former President Mauricio Macri, the next government will have to correct the exchange rate; However, he felt that the conditions are not in place to carry out a strong devaluation in a more complicated situation than in 2015, with many more pesos and fewer dollars in the Central Bank.

He also mentioned the exchange rate: “Every time there was a rate in Argentina, the situation worsened. Always. The trap has been shown to be a disaster and of course the trap must be removed, but I don’t think it can happen overnight this time around,” he said in statements to Radio. Miter Prat gay he was acting minister when the stocks were lifted in 2015.

Pray Gay stressed the need to take these types of measures within the framework of a coordinated economic and political program and with a lot of dialogue with the opposition. “The good proposals that a political party may have later are not supported over time if economic agents do not believe that they will be supported,” he said.

“The next president must sit down to negotiate with what remains in the opposition. I want to believe that Kirchnerism is ending but Peronism remains where there are more rational figures and you have to dialogue with them,” he added.

Regarding the lack of consensus between the ruling party and the opposition, he said: “We have to cut with this dynamic. This dynamic has been going on for decades and it has led us to this decadence, to poverty, to the departure of young people; In all corners of the country, the problems are the same and people do not give more. There is an awareness of the need for change and if there is a leader who can capture that and explain to society the way to stop the decay, there will be a lot of support,” he anticipated.

He also highlighted copper, lithium, oil and gas as Argentina’s big opportunities. “Gas is a good example now, Argentina should be exporting gas. This government took two years on the gas pipeline, which they named after their spiritual leader, and I don’t know why no progress has been done about it,” he said.

According to the calculations, an energy account that last year was negative $5,000 would become a positive account of $15,000 million. “Argentina’s problem is not a lack of dollars, it’s a lack of common sense,” he said.

“Argentina has always been the Argentina of contrasts; Right now, the tragedy of the present coexists with the opportunity of the future. It is difficult to look to the future because the tragedy of the present is total. The basic basket increases by 10% in one month. It’s an absolute disaster. The only time there was higher inflation was 30 years ago, in the midst of hyperinflation. What’s left to come is that, respect how we can get worse. This is a government that has no intention of improving things,” he said.

He also talked about mining opportunities. “With a new government, it is possible to leave behind the tragedy of the present. You have to sit down and talk to everyone. In a 50% country, we cannot focus exclusively on the environment. We have to take care of the environment, but there is also a generation that is getting poorer day by day,” he warned.

And he gave as an example that a typical household needs $180,000 a month of income to not be poor when the average salary is $100,000. “Everything indicates that at the end of Alberto Fernández’s mandate, poverty will be 50% when they assumed 35%. This is the great challenge that awaits us,” he reflected. Then, he pointed out that there are many economists at Juntos por el Cambio working on different plans and anticipated that after PASO, these teams will integrate and coordinate a common program.

“The error in the first care of Cambiemos did not explain why we had to take these drugs today because in a few years we will be better. The program does not stop at the economy, the advantage is that society has already realized that this model is exhausted and no longer allows”, he explained.

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