Prices started the year on the up, not just in Argentina. After two months of disinflation, inflation accelerated again in January on the 38-country average which make up the Inflation Monitor created by the economist Nadin Argañaraz. The truth is Argentina is on the podium of the countries that recorded the largest price increase last month and drives the rise in inflation over the past twelve months.
Only in three countries Inflation in the first month of the year started from 6%: in Turkey, Argentina and the Czech Republic. On the other hand, seven countries recorded negative inflation last monthincluding Spain, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and the Netherlands.
“Analyzing the last six months, the main figure to highlight is that average international inflation returned to growth after two months of decline“, remarked the economist, who heads the Argentine Institute of Fiscal Analysis (IARAF).
“The gap between Argentina’s monthly inflation and the sample median was 5.5 percentage points in January, higher than in previous months. With January data, Argentina consolidates an average annual inflation of 58.7% over the last four years“, He added.
Argentina is the country where prices increased the most in the last year. Considering the inter-year variation in January 2023, Argentina (98.8%) and Turkey (57.7%) stand out in the sample considered. Then follows a second group of three countries with inflation above 20% on an annual basis (Hungary, Latvia and Lithuania). At the other extreme, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Bolivia and China all recorded year-on-year inflation of less than 5%, Argañaraz noted.
However, if one observes the trend of the last six months, one notices that in Argentina the trend is downwards. Quarterly inflation increases in 16 of the 38 countries surveyed, but decreases in 22 of the countries on this list. In the main countries where it slows down it is in the Netherlands, where it fell by 9.4 percentage points, in Belgium with a drop of 4.5 percentage points and in Argentina, where it lost 3.8 percentage points.
The monitor takes into account what happens with inflation in 38 countries of the world: Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Korea, Denmark, Slovenia, Spain, United States, Estonia, France , Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Norway, Netherlands, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Switzerland, Turkey and Uruguay.
AQ
Source: Clarin
