After the slowdown in food prices in the last week of the month, February inflation appears to be picking up in a range between 15% and 18% according to economists’ estimates. It would be higher than that estimated by Minister Luis Caputo.
According to consultancy firm LCG, the basket products, which have a strong impact on the consumer price index (CPI), showed a slight slowdown in the fourth week of the month by around 1.4%. With which, The average increase in food over the past four weeks was 11.4%.
For this reason, among other things, the forecasts were much more optimistic than in January. Among the most positive are clearly those of the Government. A few days ago, the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, predicted that “inflation will increase this month closer to 10% than 20%. “We will see a substantial decrease that is the product of the fiscal and monetary controls that we are implementing,” he explained.
President Javier Milei also said this on social networks before his opening speech to the Congress sessions the caste “is nervous because inflation is falling”.
Another lower inflation forecast is the CPI Bahia Blanca Online. After analyzing 15,913 prices, it found an average increase of 10.97% in February, with a cumulative increase of 262.44% on an annual basis.
From EcoGo they estimated February inflation to be 15.9% on average. In this direction, for”March We believe it will be slightly higher, in the area of 16/17%“explained Lucio Garay Méndez, analyst at the consultancy firm.
Meanwhile, from the consultancy firm Focus Market, Damián Di Pace has calculated the increase in inflation 14.8%. In particular, the increase in prices of consumer products was 9.8% in February, which caused a drop in purchase levels of nearly 23% over that period.
For his part, Fausto Spotorno, director of Ferreres & Asociados, commented in a radio interview that “inflation will drop a little in February, about 15%”. “The decline in inflation began to be felt in the second week of February and this will continue. We are still talking about high inflation and there are still many prices to complete, such as utility rates and salaries “They will continue to generate price inertia,” – added the economist.
In measurements by the Libertad y Progreso Foundation, the February price index reached 16.8%, slowing down by 3.8 percentage points compared to the official January survey (20.6%). According to these calculations, in the first two months of the year the CPI accumulates an increase of 40.9% and the interannual variation reaches 288, the highest value since March 1991.
The month’s performance was influenced by a substantially high variation in the first week, due to the update of the AMBA public transport tariffs. “Starting from the second week of the month, the data converge towards variations in the order of 2%-3% weekly, maintaining the trend of the last fortnight of January and reaching values similar to those of September 2023,” estimates the entity.
Drag for March
As, The last week of February leaves a three percentage point delay on March, approximately 0.2 points less than in January. For March he expects an increase in the consumer price index of around 15%.
Valentín Gutiérrez, analyst of the same Foundation, underlines that “even if the price indices will continue to show significant increases in the months of February and March, strictly inflation, understood as a process of loss of value of our currency, is easing, this is reflected in the stability of the peso against the dollar. This does not mean that the inherited monetary surplus has not yet been translated into prices in all markets and one must be honest. But it suggests that once the process is complete, price increases will slow sharply“, he has declared.
Economist Lautaro Moschet, from the same group, adds that “although people’s pockets continue to suffer month after month, we must take into account that the conditions are being created to think of a country with low inflation in the medium term”. he predicted.
In one of its latest reports, the consultancy firm ACM analyzed this aspect For the next few months the market expects continued high inflation, albeit with a downward trend. According to the Central Bank’s Survey of Expectations (REM), this level would be equal to 18% monthly, falling to 15.3% in March and reaching single-digit figures for June.
“Relative delays still persist. They are exposed in various categories of CPI compared to general inflation, especially in Education; Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels and communications. On the other hand, the national government has already announced a progressive line elimination of subsidies for the coming months, which will result in increases in tariffs for transport and other public services, this will eventually have an impact on the overall price level,” the consultancy warned.
Source: Clarin
