Argentine Minister of Economy rejects opposition dollarization proposal

Argentina’s Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, questioned and rejected yesterday, Friday, the proposal of dollarization of the country by sectors of the local opposition given the upcoming presidential elections.

“How much market will they be able to sustain with salaries of 100 dollars and with dollars of 1,900 pesos for their production? That is dollarization”, said Massa before representatives of small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) that participated in the launching of the “Crear” credit line during an event of Banco Nación in the city of Buenos Aires.

The official said that industry and the local economy “has a 40 percent incidence of the dollar in its production, for intermediate goods and finished goods that are part of the value chain”.

In this regard, he mentioned that two models are at stake in the South American country: a “development model” and another of “financial speculation”.

“It is a choice regarding a country model in which there is a debate and a permanent tension between the economy associated with the generation of value, to industrial development, to the generation of employment, versus the economy associated to speculation and also to the generation of fictitious value based on the search for profitability in financial instruments,” Massa said during the event.

“Those of us who want work, development, added value, capacity to compete before the world, must defend our production capacity using exchange competitiveness”, he added.

In Massa’s opinion, with this type of proposal, labor rights, union rights, and the productive capacity of small and medium-sized companies are also at stake.

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