After knowing the official inflation for January (6%), driven to a large extent by the increases in meat, it is estimated that the evolution of retail prices will suffer a similar fate in February.
According to economists who usually advance their forecasts,
the rise will be between 5.5% and 6.1%.
With
these estimates, year-on-year inflation
will exceed 100%
, after 98.8% in January, which was the highest value in 31 years.
As highlighted by the IERAL, from the Mediterranean Foundation, "if the CPI for February
equals or exceeds 5.3%
, then Argentina will have returned to
three-digit inflation
in the interannual measurement," they highlight.
In this second month of the year, in addition to the pressure exerted by the increases in the price of meat and the seasonality of fruits and vegetables, increases in regulated products and services
will be added
(although they would slow down around 3 points compared to the month January), about 4% in fuels;
6.6% in prepaid and 5% in domestic service personnel and 10% telephony.
In the case of
food
, the survey of the
LCG
consultancy reflects an increase of 6% per month.
"Although in contrast, it will be necessary to see the effect that the renewal of the Fair Prices program
may have
, which imposed an average increase of 3.2% per month vs. 4% in the previous version," he warned.
According to this vision,
the inflationary dynamic has not yet fully relaxed:
it presents "a
high inertia
together with an electoral calendar full of challenges (such as the administration of the exchange rate gap in
a context of drought
or the refinancing of the 18 trillion debt in pesos that mature between April and September) that may threaten to
revive expectations and mark up prices".
"Our measurement of the CPI GBA registered a monthly rise of
6.1%
between the first half of February and the same period in January, realizing that
the inflationary rebound in January would be consolidating
," says Santiago Manoukian, head of Research at
Ecolatina
.
The category that grew the most was the Core CPI (+7.3%), which reflects the most trend behavior of the general price level, excluding regulated and seasonal prices with a significant tax component, the consultant explained.
According to Ecolatina, seasonal prices moved 5% (2.1 points below the first half of January), moderated by lower growth in clothing, vegetables (although above average) and some items associated with tourism.
Meanwhile, regulated prices showed less dynamism than last month: they advanced 3% per month.
Among the different items, the rise in food and beverages (+9.2%) stood out again, and, in line with expectations, the increase in this division was driven mainly by the jump in beef prices (
+ 22.2%), after the 40% increase in the prices of standing farms
since the second half of January.
In this way, meat explained almost 1.3 points of the increase in the general level.
For the consultancy
Eco Go,
(one of the closest with its forecast to the official inflation data for January), this month,
the general rise in prices will be close to 6.1%
, according to the economist Sebastián Menescaldi. , which would yield
102.9% year-on-year.
It happens that, in his weekly monitoring, he noticed that in the second week of the month, the food indicator registered a variation of 2.4% with respect to the previous week.
"With this data and considering a weekly variation projection of 1% for the following two weeks of the month,
inflation for food consumed at home in February climbs to 7.3% per month
," he explained.
Other estimates on inflation for February range from
the 5% estimated by the consultant Equilibra and 5.5% by C&T.
In turn, the group of firms that provide their data to the Central Bank for the Survey of Market Expectations (REM) projected -on average- inflation of
5.5%
for February.
Meanwhile, the variations expected for the following months imply
an average inflation during the first semester of around 5.7%.
The projections of MAP Economic & Business Advisors indicate that "inflation would accelerate again this year to 103.5%,
with an average increase of 6.1% per month between February and December",
review.
Among the factors that can sustain the inflationary floor, according to analysts, are
inflationary inertia itself
, with contracts being negotiated based on past inflation and growing union pressures in an election year;
the adjustment in the price of public services
, since the removal of subsidies, will affect retail prices;
supply restrictions due to the lack of dollars to import
and
less fiscal discipline
in the framework of the electoral year in which the authorities could resort to an increase in social spending to improve their chances at the polls.
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