Belarra returns to the charge against the president of Mercadona and Calviño demands to "lower his tone"
The
Ministry of Economy has not detected
in the last year, in which inflation has skyrocketed by 8.6% on average,
an increase in profit margins in companies,
which would have served them to enrich themselves and would have fueled even more the rise in prices, something that the unions and also the Podemos part of the Government accuse them of.
"
We cannot continue allowing companies to continue fattening their profits
at the expense of wages and working people,"
Yolanda Díaz,
second vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor, cried two weeks ago at a public ceremony.
A criticism that has been added this week by
Ione Belarra
, Minister of Social Rights, by harshly attacking Juan Roig, president of Mercadona.
From the Ministry of Economy
they denied
this Friday that
this enrichment via margins
is taking place in general terms.
They explained that the margins of all companies in the country in aggregate today represent
10.4% of their sales,
while in
2019
, before the pandemic,
that share was around 8.5%.
Yes, there has been an increase, but
if energy companies
- refining and wholesalers, that is, distribution - are excluded, the proportion of business margins over sales
is still below the pre-pandemic level today
, around
9, 9%
.
This shows that, except for energy companies,
companies have not taken advantage of the inflationary situation
to increase their margins, that is, to deliberately decide to take a higher percentage of their sales.
Profit margins
have grown in 2022
, but they continue to be below pre-covid levels, the Ministry points out, and, above all,
they have grown at a slower rate than prices have increased
, which
invalidates the theory
that profits
corporate margins are creating
second-round effects
on inflation, strongly defended by the unions.
"There are companies that don't, sectors that don't, but in general what is not debatable and is not questioned by international organizations is that
what is causing inflation to skyrocket is the growth of corporate profits
," he denounced beginning of January
Pepe Álvarez,
general secretary of the
UGT
.
"We were right to anticipate something that has clearly happened in 2022 and that looks like it will continue to happen in 2023: that
corporate profits are driving and entrenching inflation
that workers are paying with a significant loss of purchasing power, especially in the sectors non-unionized", added a few days ago
Unai Sordo,
general secretary of
CCOO
.
The idea has been
denied by Nadia Calviño's Ministry
, which also affirms that
wages are not contributing to inflation either
.
"Margins are not responsible for inflation,
what is responsible is the rise in energy
," she stresses.
In the specific case of distribution, which has been especially attacked in recent days, in Economy they have not detected anything in particular: "
We have not seen an increase in margins in distribution
. In this sector (margins) are narrow due to the very structure of the market", they have affirmed.
What the Ministry is closely monitoring is that supermarkets apply
the VAT reduction for basic products:
"The reduction is being transferred in general terms but it is important to continue monitoring so that the cost reductions are transferred to prices" , they point out.
They also consider that for prices to fall, "
the best guarantee is that there is effective competition
in distribution", also alluding to the voices that call for a
cap on prices
that would violate free competition.
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CCOO
Mercadona
Juan Roig
Ione Belarra
Nadia Calvino
Yolanda Diaz
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