Argentina relaunches installment purchase plan to reactivate domestic consumption

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Argentine government relaunched on Monday a financing program from 3 to 30 installments to encourage domestic consumption and national production in the coming months, amid the long crisis affecting the country since 2018.

“It is a virtuous circle that we are setting in motion,” said President Alberto Fernández at the presentation ceremony, pointing out “the possibility that there may be more Argentines who consume” because thus “there is going to be a domestic market that expands, and in that expansion, the entrepreneurs who invest”, “those who work” and “those who consume” will gain.

The so-called “Ahora 12” plan maintains in force the plans at 3, 6, 12, and 18 fixed monthly installments with credit cards accepted by the participating stores and virtual sales portals. It incorporates financing in 24 and 30 installments.

Fernández acknowledged that Argentina has gone through “the worst two years of its history”, pointing out the inheritance “full of economic problems, where the debt continues to be a dreadful backpack,” to which he added the Covid-19 pandemic.

Relaunching a program initiated during the Presidency of Cristina Fernández (2007-2015), now Vice-President, is an attempt by the government to encourage consumption among the population, dampened by the fall in purchasing power – inflation rose to 50.2% year-on-year last June -, given the primary elections of September and the legislative elections of next November.

With up to 30 installments, it will be possible to finance eight domestic white goods such as refrigerators. Meanwhile, it will also be possible to pay in 24 installments for construction materials and tools, home furniture, bicycles, mattresses, tires, accessories and spare parts, computers, notebooks and tablets, televisions, monitors, and small household appliances.

It also allows the possibility of paying in 12 installments to purchase clothing and footwear, a sector to which Fernández reminded that it had already “increased prices strongly” and warned that “they should not take advantage” to raise prices.

The Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, added that the Ahora 12 program should be understood “as a measure within an integral vision for the economy to recover and support the recovery that is already taking place.”

He also indicated that this vision “seeks to create conditions of certainty, of general economic tranquility” so that the “recovery continues over time” in a context of uncertainty in which exchange rate volatility has been generated.

The Government supported the tool by indicating that the operations with this program in the first half of this year grew 22% year-on-year in terms of number of operations and 61% in invoicing in local currency.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Productive Development, Matías Kulfas, acknowledged that the recovery is happening in a heterogeneous way but celebrated that the industry grew 4 % above 2019 in the first seven months of the year, according to the Center of Studies for Production of his portfolio.

The Fernández administration announced the program’s extension until January 31, 2022. The possibility of using it every day of the week took place at the Visuar home appliance factory, located in the Industrial Park of the Cañuelas district of Buenos Aires.