On Friday, April 14, INDEC will present the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for March.
Private projections place it above 7%.
This Monday the EcoGo estimate was released, which anticipates
inflation of 7.2% for the month that has just ended.
"Although the rise in food seems to have moderated this month after the strong
catch up
experienced by meat in February,
inflation is far from abating
," they pointed out.
For EcoGo, the food item rose 7.6% in the month.
In March there were increases in practically all regulated sectors: fuel (3.8%), subways (38%), private schools (16.3%), prepaid (7.66%), train and bus tickets 6%, and taxis (30%), among others.
"It should be noted that
March is a month in which seasonality works against you
and the start of classes together with the change of season drive categories such as education (17.3%) and clothing (7.8%) to rise."
"Meanwhile, the Fair Prices program continues to be in force and new products of all kinds continue to be added while fines and controls are tightened, with
little to no results
," they state.
Also the IPC GBA of Ecolatina accelerated again in March
.
It climbed 7.4% compared to February and adds 107.5% in the interannual measurement,
consolidating the rebound registered in the first two months.
Thus, the Ecolatina measurement accelerated 0.9 percentage points compared to February (6.6%) and registered the highest monthly variation since July 2022 (7.5%).
Thus,
it accumulated an increase of 21.8% in the year, when in the first quarter of 2022 the increase was 14.9%
.
The increase was driven
mainly by the Seasonal category (9.4%)
, standing out Clothing (18%) and Fruits (6.1%), although moderated by the fall in Vegetables (-4.5%).
Regulated grew 7.7%, influenced by the increases in Gas (14.0%), Water (17.8%), Public Transportation (14.7%), Cigarettes (8.6%), Telephone (7.0 %), Prepaid (5.3%) and Formal Education (24.5%).
For its part, the
Core CPI
, which excludes seasonal prices or those with a high regulated component -and for this reason is used as an indicator of the general price level trend-
increased 7%,
decelerating 0.5 percentage points compared to February
.
The moderation was mainly explained by the slowdown in Food and beverages.
"The inflationary acceleration does not only impact the need for the Government to recover some 'political capital' in view of the elections, but also generates greater pressure to accelerate the crawling peg and raise interest rates, making the scenario more
unstable "
, says Ecolatina.
The consultancy warns that "core inflation around 7% in March would once again put pressure on the Central Bank in its
next decision on the monetary policy rate (TPM):
by currently yielding 6.5% effective monthly rate,
the ex-post real interest rates for March would be negative for the second month in a row
."
In the list of April increases, prepaid, electricity, gas, fuel, domestic services, buses, trains and private schools are already noted, which would
set a floor of around 6%.
AQ
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