Cities: the increase in discounts, transport, tariffs and fuel brought inflation to 14.1% in February

Due to the lower price increase, meatand for seasonal reasons in the sector clothing, education and tourism, In February the consumer price index of the city of Buenos Aires recorded an increase of 14.1%. These are the first official inflation data for February.

With this increase, the CABA CPI accumulates in first two months of the year up by 38.9% and an interannual variation of 264.5% (26 percentage points more than the previous month), according to the Directorate of Statistics and Censuses of Buenos Aires. This jump in interannual variation explains why In February 2023, Buenos Aires inflation was 6%.

Over the past 3 months, the inflation trajectory in CABA was 21.1% in December, 21.7% in January and 14.1% in February: cumulatively it is 68.2%.

The slowdown in inflation largely responds to seasonal factors whose prices increased on average by only 2.4%, such as the decline in airline tickets (-18.9%), hotel accommodations (-7%) and holiday packages (-1.3%) and below that average increases in clothing (+10.3%), footwear (+8.4%) and education (+9.4%).

Despite these smaller seasonal increases and decreases, inflation reached 14.1% as regulated prices increased by 26.5%. The adjustments in anticipated medical expenses (+28%), in the value of the ticket passenger transport (+32.3%) residential tariffs for the electricity service electricity (+83.7%) and in the prices of fuels for domestic vehicles. “Thus, this group accelerated its rate of increase year-on-year to 265.6% (+62.2 percentage points). The Insurance category increased by 30.7%.

By chapters, the variations were:

• Food and non-alcoholic drinks increased by 14.7%. The main impulses came from Bread and cereals (16.4%), Milk, dairy products and eggs (17.1%) and Meat and derivatives (7.9%).•

• Transport recorded an average increase of 21%. Next in importance were the increases in prices of cars, fuel and lubricants for domestic vehicles. Conversely, falling airline ticket prices contributed to slowing the division’s growth.

• Accommodation, water, electricity, gas and other fuels recorded an increase of 13.2%, mainly influenced by the increase in residential electricity service rates and rental values.

• Health increased by 21.1%, due to the adjustments to the discounts on medicines. Information and communication increased by 19.4%, mainly due to increased tariffs for mobile telephone and communication services.