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GV EXTERIOR PAN troops in trucks in Buenos Aires, Argentina
0.16

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SV Crowds
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CU Colonel Jorge de Oro Sanchez walks through crowd and market
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SV Troops walking up stairs
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SV Colonel Sanchez and officer walk past boxes of fruit
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GV Traffic outside market PULL BACK TO Show market
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SV Market seller and customer PAN other stalls
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SV Customers and sellers (2 shots)
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MV Meat being cut as butcher sells same (2 shots)
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GV EXTERIOR Market
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The military move on the markets was part of a new tough policy announced by the Minister for the Economy, Jose Martinez de Hoz, in the Government's continuing efforts to establish a free market system. After an initial burst, Argentina returned to high consumption and low productivity levels from workers uninspired by continuing wage restraints. Senor Martinez de Hoz has ordered 500 leading companies to drop prices and keep them there for four months or face economic reprisals in an effort to offset wage restraint.




Initials OS



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: INTRODUCTION: In Argentina, the army has begun the takeover of food markets in and around the capital, Buenos Aires.

SYNOPSIS: One of the first to be taken over was the Central Market in Buenos Aires. It's one of 23 in the metropolitan area affected by the move. The Commerce Department of the Military Administration said the takeover was aimed at wiping out "scandalous and inadmissible immorality" at the markets. Colonel Jorge de Oro Sanchez is to be the military trustee of the Central Market. The take overs were made with the backing of armed troops.

The Commerce department said the move was not a form of unnecessary meddling by the state. it was necessary, it said, because of speculation, parasitic middlemen and exorbitant price increases. before the military intervention, food consignments could change hands several times in cafe-table dealing by middlemen, sending retail prices spiralling in recent months.

A Government statement said that the use of military officers did not mean a militarization of the process, but rather a way of providing the Commerce Department decision with the rigour and security which the operation required. According to the Commerce Department, between January and August last year, 2,000 marketing companies had operated in the 23 markets taken over.

The operation is understood to be a preliminary step to the transfer of all market operations to the central Buenos Aires Market yet to be constructed.

Inflation, running at a monthly figure of about 50 percent, was one of the economic factors leading to the military over-throw, last year, of the administration of Maria Estela Peron. The military administration then cut the rate to five percent but in the first quarter of this year it has averaged 10.6 percent monthly.