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The rise in prices in April exceeded all analyst forecasts and fueled concern among consumers who increasingly have to cut corners on expenses. The prices of the family basket more than doubled in the last year.
Getting items from the basic basket has become more and more, for many Argentines, a daily struggle. The increase in prices did not let up in the fourth month of the year and stood at 108.8% in annual terms, according to the statistics department.
In a country that has struggled for decades with high inflation, cyclical debt and various currency crises, the rise in the CPI accumulates three consecutive months with prices that are double those of a year ago on average. The monthly variation was 8.4%.
This fragile economic situation has been aggravated by a historic drought that the country has been experiencing since last year. A phenomenon that has affected exports of soybeans, corn, and wheat, depleting foreign currency reserves and hampering the government’s ability to combat currency weakness.
The Central Bank of the third largest economy in Latin America believes that for the rest of the year inflation would reach 126.4% per year, an undesirable situation for President Alberto Fernández, who ends his term at the end of this year.
Food inflation among the highest in the world
Although inflation has been a problem around the world, made worse by the war in Ukraine, Argentina ranks second in a World Bank ranking of countries with the highest food inflation.
State statistics agency Indec revealed that food inflation for the 12 months ending in April was 115%, a figure second only to Lebanon at 352%, and has pushed one in four people into poverty. .
But Argentina’s economic scourge is not limited to sky-high inflation: its currency has lost value against the US dollar, which has broken all-time highs several times this year.
“In April we had a currency run that took the dollar from 460 to almost 500 pesos. Any rise in the dollar affects prices and there is an escalation, then the dollar goes down and prices don’t,” Fernández said in statements to ‘Radio 10’ reported by the EFE news agency.
With EFE, Reuters and AP
