The behavior of prices in the first two months casts doubt on the real possibilities of decelerating inflation to 60% this year, from 94.8% in 2022, as the government has proposed among its macroeconomic stabilization objectives.
“The government’s goal of inflation around 60% year-on-year for December seems increasingly unattainable,” the consultancy Ecolatina said in a report, for which inflationary inertia appears “difficult to disarm in the short term.”
The Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, renewed in February a voluntary agreement of “Fair Prices” with supermarkets and food, hygiene, clothing, telephone, education and other items companies, to de-index the economy, with expected increases of 3.2% per month up to June in about 2,000 products.
(PHOTO: JUAN MABROMATA/AFP)
Eugenio Marí, chief economist of the Libertad y Progreso Foundation, points out that consumer prices in Argentina will grow 110% this year, with “a very important component of repressed inflation.”
“In the last three years, arrears have accumulated in electricity, gas and water rates, in transportation, health and other items with regulated prices,” Marí explained to the EFE news agency.
Polls show that inflation is one of the issues that worries the population the most and is likely to harm the current Peronist administration in the general elections next October, for which the center-right opposition would have a better chance.
With information from AFP, EFE and Reuters
