https://buenosairesherald.com/economics/milei-shrinks-economy-ministry-but-refrains-from-major-changes
President Javier Milei issued a decree on Tuesday shrinking and restructuring the Economy Ministry. The most salient feature is the elimination of areas devoted to housing policies, but its impact was much lower than expected, given that Milei had announced he would cut dozens of areas within the state structure.

The Territorial Development, Habitat, and Housing Secretariat was eliminated, and its functions will now be carried out by the Public Wo

javier milei

rks Secretariat at the Economy Ministry. The only surviving housing organism is the one devoted to socio-urban integration, which is led by Presidency Secretary Karina Milei’s right-hand man, Sebastián Pareja.

“This decision responds to the conviction that housing policy must be carried out mainly by provinces, municipalities, and the private sector, reducing the intervention of the national state in this matter,” said an Economy Ministry communiqué released on Monday.

Milei had already eliminated the main fiduciary funds that were used to carry out housing policies, including PROCREAR, a program created in 2012 dedicated to build houses and grant citizens’ access to mortgages to buy them at lower costs. The PROCREAR program was eliminated in November, leaving around 18,000 building projects unfinished.

Those fiduciary funds were “using society’s resources wrongfully and lacked controls and results,” the communiqué added.

The decree also created a secretariat devoted to energy and mining policies. The Industry and Trade Secretariat will absorb functions related to industry policies, international trade, and consumers’ defense.

Last week, Milei announced that he would issue a mega-decree to “go against 50 government areas,” a measure akin to the 70/2023 decree he issued when he took office. The new decree, named 70/2025 as a homage to the original mega-decree, was expected to have a much larger scope than it finally ended up having.

“We will shut down around 60% of [the targeted public offices], and we are thinking of transforming or merging the rest of them,” Milei told LN+ news channel. “We will apply the Elon Musk method and ask each organization to issue a sort of summary of what resources they are using, and once we know that, we will shut down the rest.”