Annabella quiroga
01/01/2021 20:08
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 01/01/2021 20:08
Inflation in December closed at around 4% according to the consultants' forecasts.
If this is confirmed, it will become
the highest of the year.
This leaves an important drag for 2021: for analysts, the price index
will move between 45% and 55%
.
There will be three keys that will define the year that begins: the dollar, rates and wages.
With 4% in December, inflation in 2020 will be 36%, far from 53% in 2019. The Central Bank noted the reduction in inflation as one of the achievements of this first year of administration.
In the balance released days ago, they highlight that the pandemic required "an unprecedented level of emission."
At the same time "
a great sterilization effort
was made
to absorb excess liquidity."
This policy, together with other instruments "
achieved a reduction in inflation of
around 20 points compared to 2019"
.
The view of private economists is more critical.
"The situation is delicate.
We are entering a scenario of high inflation without an anti-inflationary plan
," says Guido Lorenzo, director of LCG.
LCG's projection is that December inflation will be 4%.
"Our survey of food and beverages is giving us over 4%. It leaves an important drag for January. For this first month of the year we expect 3.7% with an average of 4% for the first quarter."
"Without having a foreign exchange setback, our base scenario, with an adjustment in rates, is
55% inflation from end to end in December,
" says Lorenzo.
For this year the Budget law provides for an inflation of 29%.
"It is ridiculously low, there is no analyst who can defend that number currently," insists LCG.
The Market Expectations survey (REM) of the Central Bank places it at 50% as of December 2021.
"The economy sails with an inflation between 3% and 4% per month.
It is a high floor
, considering that this time it is not coming from an adjustment of the dollar; if not rather that it
is acting as an anchor
and the devaluation expectations are in increase".
For Lorenzo, one of the complications that inflation will add in 2021 are all the
price adjustments that were delayed
in 2020: energy, transport, wages, fuels, regulated services / trampled on in the context of the pandemic and the second-round effects that These increases generate due to the weight in the value chain that they have.
"Amen that the exchange situation does not strongly contaminate prices," he mentions.
From Ecolatina, Matías Rajnerman estimates an inflation of 3.7% for December.
"December is particularly high for fruits and vegetables and for meat. We see an elevated floor in the first quarter of 3.5%. For all of 2021
we are in the 45% zone,
almost 10 percentage points more than this year."
"The beginning of this year is going to be driven by tensions that were postponed from 2020," Rajnerman says.
In this sense, what happens with the rates is key.
For this economist, there will be no increases in the first quarter.
But he warns that "
long after April they cannot leave
because afterwards you already have the elections and at the same time continuing to expand spending through subsidies is also difficult."
For Rajnerman, the other issue that will put pressure on prices is wages.
"In 2020 the parity companies were limited by the pandemic, but there will be revisions at the beginning of 2021. There must be some kind of recomposition and that
will add pressure
."
"In December we are around 4% or a little more. There were typical increases at the end of the year, those related to vacations, increases to domestic employees, plus the effect of the rise in fuel, subways and prepaid," he says Camilo Tiscornia, from C&T Consultores.
"
Core inflation
-clean from regulated prices and the seasonal effect- has not stopped
rising since August
."
For 2021, Tiscornia estimates
a base inflation of 43%
, "with the Government controlling prices and tightening everything so that it does not escape."
But a forecast of 50%, "does not seem crazy to me. Our estimate is conservative and is within a macro scenario with the Government intervening, perhaps delaying rate adjustments, with the same tricks of the past."
Tiscornia adds to the dollar as another factor that will influence the course of inflation.
"They
will try to prevent the exchange rate from rising so much in 2021
, it is what they do historically in the election year.
Along the same lines, the Cohen Group warns that although the projections for this year suggest an inflation of 50% "it is expected that the projections will be modified according to what happens in the foreign exchange market."
"Towards the first quarter,
a price increase of 12.3%
is projected
, which will be determined by monetary dynamics and the expectations of the different price makers, which is dependent on economic policy," they point out.
AQ