As part of Expoagro, President Javier Milei declared on Tuesday that the inflation rate, after the December and January data, will continue to decrease and will reach 15% in February. Is it possible that this price level actually exists? What do economists think and what could happen in March?
Specifically, the President’s words were: “When in December (inflation) reached 25%, it was a success, because prices fell in the second week. This month it looks like inflation will be at 15% “. Accumulated inflation would reach 60 points for the first three months of his term.
In general terms, economists stress that this would be a minimum limit. Many, They have close predictions and some that are slightly higher. For example, Claudio Capraruloeconomist consultant Analyses, He says: “Our projection is very similar to February and March. Near 16%”answers the question about the sustainability of the price index (CPI), estimated by the government in the second month of the year at 15%.
Second Gabriele Caamanoeconomist consultant Ledesmahe replies: “I think he can give a little above, 15% and something more. To be able, 16% or 17%. “This is the private sector consensus.”
According to the analyst, “to the extent that devaluation is left behind, the rate of inflation of tradable goods and services must go to the rate of to crawl (gradual adjustment of the exchange rate) and the will take time to converge is that of the non-tradables, which are more services than goods. The latter, “The services inflation rate is the most difficult to measure well for private services,” warns.
“So, that could be it the private sector underestimated it in February and the INDEC inflation rate is a little higher: between 16% or 17%.“He explained.
In March, according to the expert, “the decline will probably slow down for the same reason”.
According to the forecasts of Freedom and Progress Foundationthat would be last month’s inflationary surge, which INDEC will report on Tuesday, March 12 16.8%. This implies a slowdown of 3.8 percentage points compared to the official measurement in January (20.6%).
“In the evolution of the month, we found that the first week of February had a substantially high variation, due to the update of AMBA public transport fares. Starting from the second week of the month, the data converge towards variations between 2% and 3% weekly, maintaining the trend of the last fortnight of January and reaching values similar to those of September 2023″.
According to another study by the Scalabrini Ortiz Center for Economic and Social Studies (CESO), the orthodox shock that the Government is applying – based on a fiscal, wage, currency and monetary anchor – it will not be enough to lower the price index because “it does not attack the inertial factors that explain the current inflationary regime”.
According to this study, “In the coming months there will be significant increases in tariffs for public services, transport and items such as education, which have a strong seasonal component”, and this “will cause a new wave of price increases”. In March the increase would be around 20% again, He explained.
The consultancy ACM also sees inflation “still high, albeit with a downward trend in the coming months”, it warns in its latest report.
One of the forecasts that comes closest to the reduction desired by the party in power is that Bahia Blanca Online CPI, which, after analyzing 15,913 prices, detected an average increase of 10.97% in Februarywith a cumulative 262.44% on an annual basis.
Also, the consultant Balance announced that the February increase would happen 14.5% and annual inflation of 280%. Meanwhile, since then EcoGo They in turn estimated that February inflation was 15.9% on average. In this direction, by March we believe this will be the case slightly abovein the area of 16/17%,” he explained Lucio Garay Mendezanalyst consultant.
For its part, according to the CPI measured by the consultancy firm Orlando Ferreres & AssociatesFebruary inflation in the GBA was 14.6% monthly and recorded an interannual growth of 270.7%.
Source: Clarin
