The INDEC will announce today, just six days before the ballot, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for October, which is expected to show a slowdown compared to September, when it showed an increase of 12.7%. This is anticipated both by the price survey of the statistics institute of the city of Buenos Aires (IPCBA) and by private and government reports.
In October, the IPCBA had an increase of 9.4% compared to the September level, when it had marked 12%. For its part, accumulated inflation so far this year was 120.2% and the interannual variation was 146.4%.
According to the Buenos Aires report, Education was the category with the greatest increase (15.2%), while food and non-alcoholic beverages – the one with the greatest weight in the index – showed an increase of 9%, compared to 14.1% in September.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of Economic Policy, Gabriel Rubinstein, anticipated the signs of the slowdown in recent weeks, by releasing the weekly estimate made by his portfolio. He noted that inflation averaged 9.3% in the four weeks of October. All in all, the measurement by Rubinstein’s team serves to reflect trend behavior, but should not be taken as a preview of what the INDEC will give since they use different methodologies.
In any case, there are private surveys that also raise the possibility that last month’s CPI will once again be in single digits. This is the case of the recent joint report of the Institute of Workers Statistics (IET) of the UMET and the Center for Concertation and Development (CCD), which revealed that “the inflation of workers was located at 9. 8% in October, slowing down 1.7 points compared to September values.”
“The slowdown in inflation in October is explained by the freezing of official dollar prices and regulated prices (such as public services). However, it persists at very high levels,” the report noted.
Some private consulting firms also estimated that the National CPI could have returned to single digits in October, after two months sailing above 12%. This is the case of C&T Asesores Economicos (9.6%), Eco Go (9.4%) and Ecolatina (9.4%). Others placed it somewhat above.
Source: Ambito
