After a slowdown in food prices in the last week of the month, February inflation would be
in a range of between 15% to 18%
according to economists' estimates.
It would be higher than that estimated by Minister Luis Caputo.
The products in the basket - which have a high impact on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) - showed a slight slowdown in the fourth week of the month of around 1.4% according to the consulting firm LCG.
Therefore,
the average increase in food in the last four weeks was 11.4%.
For this reason, among other reasons, the forecasts were much more optimistic than in January.
Among the most positive, clearly are those of the Government.
A few days ago, the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, predicted that “this month inflation will be
closer to 10% than 20%.
"We are going to see a substantial decrease that is a product of the fiscal and monetary control that we are carrying out," he explained.
President Javier Milei also said, on social networks and in advance of his speech for the opening of sessions of Congress, that
the caste "is nervous because inflation is going down."
Another forecast of lower inflation is that of the Bahia Blanca Online CPI.
After analyzing 15,913 prices, it detected an average increase of
10.97%
in February, with a cumulative increase of 262.44% year-on-year.
EcoGo in turn estimated that February inflation was
15.9%
on average.
Along these lines, for "
March
we believe it will be slightly above,
in the area of 16/17%
," explained Lucio Garay Méndez, analyst at the consulting firm.
Meanwhile, from the consulting firm Focus Market, Damián Di Pace calculated the inflationary increase at
14.8%
.
In particular, the increase in prices of mass consumption products was 9.8% in February, something that caused
a drop in purchase levels of almost 23% in that period.
For his part, Fausto Spotorno, director of Ferreres & Asociados, commented in a radio interview that “inflation is going to drop a little in February,
around 15%
.”
“It began to be felt in the second week of February with lower inflation and that will continue.
"We are still talking about high inflation and there are still many prices to finish adjusting, such as public service rates and salaries that
will continue to generate inertia in prices,"
added the economist.
In the measurements of the Libertad y Progreso Foundation, the February Price Index reached
16.8%,
slowing down 3.8 percentage points compared to the official measurement in January (20.6%).
According to these calculations, in the first two months of the year the CPI accumulates a rise of 40.9% and the interannual variation reaches 288,
the highest value since March 1991.
The evolution of the month was influenced by a substantially high variation during the first week, due to the update of fares in AMBA public transportation.
“Starting in the second week of the month, the data converged to variations in the range of 2%-3% weekly, maintaining the trend of the last fortnight of January and reaching values similar to those of September 2023,” estimated the entity.
Drag for March
In this way,
the last week of February leaves a drag of three percentage points for March,
about 0.2 points less than in January.
For March he expects a rise in the CPI of around 15%.
Valentín Gutiérrez, an analyst at that Foundation, points out that “although price indices will continue to show significant increases in February and March, strictly
inflation, understood as the process of loss of value of our currency, is being mitigated,
which can be seen in the stability of the peso against the dollar.
That does not mean that the inherited monetary surplus has not yet been translated into prices in all markets and must be honest.
But it does suggest that, once that process is completed,
price increases will slow down sharply
,” he said.
Economist Lautaro Moschet, from the same group, adds that “despite the fact that people's pockets continue to suffer month after month, we must take into account that the conditions are being created to think of a country with low inflation in the medium term," he predicted.
In one of its latest reports, the consulting firm ACM analyzed that
for the coming months, the market foresees still high inflation,
although with a downward trend.
According to the Central Bank's Survey of Expectations (REM), this level would be 18% monthly, decreasing to 15.3% in March and
reaching single digit figures for June.
“Relative lags still persist.
They are exhibited in various categories of the CPI compared to general inflation, especially in Education;
Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels and Communication.
On the other hand, the national government has already announced a progressive
removal of subsidies for the coming months, which will translate into increases in transportation rates and other public services,
which will end up impacting the general level of prices,” the consultant warned.
NE