A year of Milei’s presidency: What’s new?

President Javier Milei Photo: EFE

December 10, 2024 Hour: 6:58 pm

On 10 December 2023, Javier Milei assumed the presidency of Argentina. 12 months later, the far-right outsider who campaigned by lifting a chainsaw over his head arrives at his first year in office with relative economic stability at the expense of millions of new poor and medically retired.

The “chainsaw” model involved cuts that led to tens of thousands of students taking up university studies; social organizations constantly denounced the implementation of hunger policies against vulnerable sectors; the staff of clinics and hospitals mobilized in demand for decent wages and the departure of hundreds of thousands of Argentines to the streets that was appeased through repression, Arbitrary arrests and physical and digital persecution of those who express criticism of the official discourse.

To date, according to the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), at least two people lost their sight during repressions when exercising the right to protest and in a single day 31 people were arrested, without any crime against them being bought at this time.

However, the financial sectors are looking favourably on their management and certain economic indicators show a slight improvement, such as a sustained fall in the inflation rate and a matching of parallel dollars to the dollar sold by the State through the central bank.

Some of the topics that marked his mandate are:

Inflation: After a peak of 25.5% in December 2023, inflation managed to slow down to 2.7% in October 2024, the lowest figure in three years.

Economic activity: The Argentine economy suffered a strong recession and many sectors such as tourism, industry and commerce suffered significant declines in sales and production.

Wages: Workers’ incomes are below the November 2023 levels, with a 6.8% drop in real terms in the public sector.

Unemployment: The unemployment rate grew to 7.7% in the first quarter of 2024, marking an increase of almost 2% compared to the same period of 2023.

Poverty: Poverty increased to 52.9% in the first half of 2024, reaching almost 25 million people, with this number increasing by four million from 2023.

Retirees: Retirees with minimum assets experienced a 6.6% loss of purchasing power, while those with higher incomes received real increases.

Trade balance: The trade balance recorded a surplus of US$ 21 billion in the first 10 months of 2024, after more than ten years of negative accounts. Since 2008, under the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina has not closed the year with a positive trade balance.

Country risk: The country risk, which is used as a benchmark for borrowing and rating of a nation’s bonds, has declined to less than 1,000 basis points, indicating improved access to international debt markets.

Exchange gap: The gap between the official dollar and the parallel has narrowed to less than 5%, the lowest level since 2019.

Consumption: Private consumption fell by 8.2% year-on-year in the first half of 2024, with indicators such as sales in supermarkets and food consumption showing a sharp decline.