MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Milei's policies leave almost no Urguayans shopping across the border

Prices in Argentina are no longer that attractive to Uruguayan consumers who used to cross the bridge between Fray Bentos and Gualeguaychú to do their shopping

Business owners in the city of Gualeguaychú in the Argentine province of Entre Ríos are foreseeing increasing losses after the latest economic measures by President Javier Milei's administration have resulted in fewer Uruguayans crossing the border to do their shopping as prices are no longer considerably lower.

“Although the price difference between the two countries has improved a lot, it still exists,” Uruguay's Economy Ministry official Marcela Bensión told Búsqueda.

Nevertheless, “the Uruguayan phenomenon can be considered over and finished, although there is still the presence of some of them, it fell to 5% of what it was, some of them can be seen because in some small item they still have some advantage, as in basic necessity supplies, but it is not the 5 or 4 to 1 advantage they used to have,” Gualeguaychú's Center of Commercial and Industrial Defense President Rafael Vela was quoted by El Día Online (www.eldiaonline.com) as saying.

With a “blue” (a euphemism for “black market”) dollar flat between AR$ 1,000 and 1,100, the exchange difference is no longer profitable as prices in Argentine pesos keep soaring.

“The flood of Uruguayans is over and the spring is over for the commerce of Gualeguaychú, and for the gastronomy and the hotel business, because Uruguayans do not come as they used to,” Vela stressed. “It will have a tremendous impact on the commercial and gastronomic sector of the city, it is already having it and it will be a very hard year in this respect, because last year, although the economy was slowing down due to inflation, here it was not felt due to the effect of the Uruguayans,” he added.

“The economy is going to be blocked, although the Uruguayan did not buy absolutely everything, the items that were touched by the Uruguayans turned to the rest of the sectors, the economy was invigorated, and that is going to be lost,” he also explained.

As the summer season had a 40% drop compared to last year, Vela admitted it was still “not bad” but lower when compared to previous years. “It was 60% of what it was the previous season,” which “was much better.”

In this scenario, Uruguayan authorities believe some US$ 50 million in tax revenues were lost in 2023 due to shopping tourism to Argentina. The current situation, however, seems to be an answer to the cries of Uruguay's Chamber of Industries President Fernando Pache, who back in May feared that “we are not going to have a single industry left open,” according to a posting on X.