On Friday morning, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Juntos por el Cambio presidential primary candidate and Buenos Aires City Mayor, presented his plan to lower inflation. It includes taking the fiscal deficit to zero in his first year in office, requiring state-owned companies to be profitable, and gradually eliminating currency controls.

Inflation is running at a three-decade high, reaching 115.6% inter-annual in June.

“We are going to revise the budget to reach zero deficit in the first year of government,” he said. He was speaking in the Buenos Aires suburb city of Morón, at the supermarket “El Económico” (Spanish for “The Cheap”). 

Last year, Argentina’s fiscal deficit was 2.4% of GDP. The country’s current agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) requires it to fall to 0.9% in 2024 — roughly one percentage point more than Larreta proposed.

His second proposal is to eliminate the deficit of state-owned companies such as Aerolíneas Argentinas, the country’s flag carrier. “They will have to be profitable like any other company,” he said.

Larreta also proposed that Congress should not be able to pass laws that require extra spending unless the bill explains where the money would come from. His fourth proposal was to modify the Central Bank’s charter to make it independent from the government, which he said would stop it from “financing the deficit” by printing money. 

“Removing the Central Bank authorities for political reasons will not be allowed,” he said.

He added that he would eliminate currency controls (commonly called the cepo, Spanish for clamp) and unify the exchange rate “at the end of the first year” of his potential government. Other anti-inflation measures included increasing exports, increasing government-backed credit, and “a new federal agreement to lower taxes.”

“If you join us, the real salary will be recovered by the end of [my government’s] term,” he promised.

When a journalist asked him about Economy Minister Sergio Massa’s allegations on Thursday that opposition economists have called the IMF to ask them to be tougher on Argentina, Larreta said the government should “take charge of the situation and stop making unfounded accusations”.

“They do it to create a distraction, instead of seeing how to lower this dramatic inflation that is eating through the pockets of all Argentines.”

– With information from Télam