Seconds after INDEC confirmed its worst forecast this Friday with inflation rising by 7.7% compared to February, presidency spokeswoman Gabriela Cerruti provided the government’s vision and linked the escalation of prices with the “impact of war” in Ukraine.
With the official data published this Friday by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec), the monthly variation is the highest since April 2002, while the interannual one has reached 104.3%, a percentage that has not been reached for more of 30 years.
“The number we see today represents the worst moment of the impact of the war on international prices and the worst drought in the country’s history,” Alberto Fernández’s spokesman began the message on Twitter.
However, the economic policy secretary, Gabriel Rubinstein, distinguished himself from the presidential spokesman and did not link the rise in inflation to the war that has been going on in Ukraine since the invasion of the Russian army. In a press release, the official linked the price hike to drought and bird flu.
Strictly speaking, data from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) ended up confirming the impact of last month’s pocket prices, which once again saw food among the items with the highest average incidence.
In the first quarter of the year there was a change of 21.7%, and in the month of March the division with the highest increase was that of Education with 29.1%, due to the increases of all educational levels at the beginning of the school year, according to reports from the institute body.
“We know, it hurts us, it occupies us, how it affects daily life and every family,” said the spokeswoman after learning of the data that confirm a trend that seems to have no brakes.
The truth is that the inflationary escalation has sparked criticism of the opposition to the Government’s economic policy, to Minister Sergio Massa and also to the spokesman’s statement.
National deputy Cristian Ritondo came out to meet him on Twitter. “It wasn’t the pandemic, it wasn’t the war, it wasn’t the drought. It was you with the issue and uncontrolled spending. Take charge,” the group leader of the Pros conveyed to the House.
However, Cerruti underlined that the national executive is “redoubling its efforts, convinced that the way is to support the growth and order we are achieving”.
“And we know most of the analytics show us that this was the worst time and that it started a downward trend which we hope to see reflected in the near future,” the spokeswoman said confidently.
Apart from Cerruti’s optimism, the INDEC data due to the rise in prices are a severe political blow for the Government, especially since in November last year, when Sergio Massa defended this year’s budget, he declared that one of its main objectives should arrive in April with inflation at 3%.
It is even ironic that a year after President Alberto Fernández announced the war on inflation, a monthly increase was reported that hadn’t occurred since the 2001 debacle that led to the fall of Fernando de la Rúa’s government. So far the government has not shown that it can stop the price increase.
Gabriel Rubinstein says March inflation was ‘extremely high’
The Undersecretary for Economic Policies, Gabriel Rubinstein, second after Sergio Massa at the Economy Ministry, released a statement in which he explains the scope and factors behind the rise in inflation, which stood at 7.7% in March.
“March featured extremely high inflation data,” the official said after INDEC released official data showing a wild pace in price increases.
In the message, Rubinstein indicated: “As particularities, it is worth mentioning increases in regulated goods and services, which tend to increase at this time of year such as education (29.1%), increases in very strong seasonal items , such as fruit (14.2%) and vegetables (9.1%), to which must be added the increase in clothing (9.4%) due to the change of season”.
The secretary explained that “during the first quarter of the year, drought, high temperatures and bird flu had their greatest impact on fruits, vegetables, beef, chicken and eggs, which together contributed 2, 1 percentage point to March inflation.
Similarly, Rubinstein pointed out that drought and bird flu influenced increases of 11.5 percent in beef and 26.7 percent in chicken, “significantly affecting the CPI.”
“Hopefully many of these factors will not be present in April, so we would expect the overall index to drop by some size. We will continue to try to bring inflation down, combining fiscal and monetary policies that remain consistent with much higher inflation rates. lows, together with income policies (deals with companies and non-companies), which help curb the inertial aspects of high inflation rates,” the official concluded.
Source: Clarin
