Prices in Argentina in November rose by 92.4% year on year.

consumer prices in Argentina last November saw an annual increase of 92.4%, up 4.4 percentage points from October, the National Institute for Statistics and Census (Indec) said this Thursday.

In the eleventh month of the year consumer prices they rose by 4.9% compared to October last year, which is a slight decrease from the figure of 6.3% recorded in the previous month.

Goods had a positive monthly change of 4.5% last month, while services rose by 5.8%, figures that are 88.2% and 77.7%, respectively, year-on-year.

Among the divisions that experienced the largest monthly growth in November are housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (8.7%) due to an increase in electricity and gas services as a result of tariff segmentation promoted by the Alberto government. Fernandez last August.

As part of a policy aimed at reducing fiscal deficit reduce the burden of subsidies that the state pays through a register of consumers who ask to keep help with paying their utility bills.

The next category with the most progress was communications (6.4%), which was mainly affected by the increase in telephone and Internet services, followed by alcoholic beverages and tobacco (6.3%) due to the impact that the increase in cigarettes had .

On the other hand, food prices were the lowest in the country, up 3.5% from the previous month (6.2%).

These results are the result of a freeze policy launched in November by major consumer goods manufacturers and supermarkets to maintain a fixed quantity of 1,700 items for 120 days.

How to stop inflation in Argentina?

Presidential spokeswoman Gabriela Cerruti announced – prior to the release of the inflation report – that the economic situation in Argentina was “relatively calm”.

“We are in the process of reducing inflation. It’s not a question of indexes, it’s something that everyone who goes to the supermarket notices, indeed, there has been a slowdown in prices over the past month, ”Cerruti said at his weekly press conference.

“We are entering a state of relative calm and hope that inflation will continue to decline. We will work with this hypothesis for now,” he concluded.

This type of price containment program is not new, but replaces a similar program that has been updated with some variations since the end of 2013 and whose effectiveness is constantly questioned.

Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa argued at the time of the launch of this program that the problem of inflation is not solved on its own, but requires an orderly fiscal policy and the accumulation of monetary reserves.

Consumer prices rose 50.9% last year, an acceleration from the 36.1% confirmed in 2020.

Last October, the International Monetary Fund and Argentina fixed projection inflation by the end of 2022 with a range that could range from 90% to 100%, which is more than 30 percentage points higher than the estimates they had in June (52-62%).

In fact, the most recent private forecasts compiled by the Central Bank on a monthly basis show that Argentina will end the year with inflation of the accumulated 99%, 2023 from 99.7%, and they expect it to fall to only 76% in 2024.

(EFE)