At the end of February, the measurements already closed by economists on the evolution of inflation for the second month of the year
show variations ranging from 5.7% to 6.4%.
With which, if these measurements are similar to those reported by INDEC, year-on-year inflation will have exceeded
100% for the first time since 1991.
As the weekly surveys of the different consultants have been showing,
food led the price increases in February
.
data that will be officially known on March 14.
Other items that put pressure on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) -in the period- are Recreation, private medicine, mobile and cable telephone services and Housing expenses, due to tariff updates.
Among the most conservative forecasts, the
Fundación Libertad y Progreso
estimated that inflation in February will rise by
5.7%
.
"In other words, it presented a slight deceleration (0.3 percentage points) compared to the data for January," he highlighted. Despite this, the year-on-year variation reached three digits and stood at 100.7%, exceeding 98.8 % of January According to the consultant, "there are already 13 consecutive months in which inflation accelerates in year-on-year terms, doubling from the value of January 2022 (50.7%)."
At the other extreme, the CPI for February, calculated by the
Orlando consulting firm Ferreres & Asociados (
GBA),
reached 6.4%
per month and registered year-on-year growth of 101.5%.
Meanwhile, core inflation -that which excludes the variation of seasonal products- advanced at a monthly rate of 6.7%, marking an annual increase of 99.4%.
According to this measurement, accumulated general inflation for this year reached 14.9%, and core inflation accumulated 11.4% in February.
In this measurement, the main items that led the increases for the month were Food, beverages and Health, which registered monthly increases of 9.0% and 7.7% respectively.
It was followed by Recreation and Transport and communications, which presented a variation of 6.8% and 5.5% respectively.
Regarding
seasonal goods and services, the registered variation was 6.6% per month, while Regulated goods increased 5.7% per month.
Among the seasonal ones, the prices of fruits and vegetables have been standing out in recent months.
For this reason, the Secretary of Commerce extended the Fair Price agreements to these products (see separate).
Other forecasts on the rise in inflation in February are those of
IPC Online of Bahía Blanca, which estimated a rise of 5.5%
;
that of
Analytica, which calculated a price movement of 5.8% on average, and that of C&T, which estimated a rise of 6.2%.
For its part, the
Eco Go consultancy forecast a
monthly rise of 6.4% basically driven by an acceleration in food prices that averaged 7.8%.
"Without counting the increases in meat, the increase in food would have given 5.6%," commented Sebastián Menescaldi, economist at that consultancy
.
Santiago Casas, economist at Libertad y Progreso, recalls that February "is a month with a high demand for money due to seasonal effects.
In March, inflationary prospects will be worse
due to increases in transportation prices and a drop in the demand for money. Most likely is that monthly inflation starts again with 6, making evident the drawing of the budget projections”, he opined.
Also, according to Ecolatina, this year will be complex for the electoral aspirations of the ruling party, "
with 0% growth in the economy and inflation around 100%
, without improvements compared to what was evidenced in 2022."
