The projections were reduced to 6.5% for the next two years, but are still higher than what the government expected and above the target range.
He Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU) published the inflation expectations for the next two years of the economics agents, which were located above what the organism itself expects within the Macroeconomic Cooperation Committee.
The gap in expectations between official analyzes and projections of the market and other agents of the Uruguayan economy is not new, and can be observed from different measurements. An example is the survey of National Institute of Statistics (INE) among businessmen, who although they pointed to a lower annual inflation in 2023 than they had been predicting, the expected 6% was above the Consumer Price Indicator (CPI) actually registered at the end of the year, 5.11%.
The same thing happens with the surveys carried out by the BCU: The recorded responses tend to give higher projections than those of the government itself. And this was observed in the last bulletin on the price evolution and expected inflation by the agents.
In this sense, the monetary authority indicated that the economic analysts In December they forecast an average inflation of 6.10% for the next two years; the financial markets, 6.42%; and the businessmen, 7%. Regarding the first and third cases, expectations were maintained in relation to the previous month, and are located at the minimum record of the series; while the markets raised their projection by 3 basis points compared to November.
If the three measures are averaged, the inflation projected by economic agents is 6.5% for 2024 and 2025. Although this value was reduced for the seventh consecutive month, once again approaching the target range established by the Macroeconomic Coordination Committee—between 3% and 6%—; continues to be above what the government foresees, with inflation of 5.3% at the end of the monetary policy horizon.
What do businessmen expect for the dollar?
The last Economic Expectations Survey (EEE) of the BCU recorded that economic agents project one dollar at 41.60 pesos in December 2024, while the median of the dollar value By the end of 2025 it is 43.95 pesos.
For December 2023, the businessmen and analysts consulted indicated an expected price of 39.5 pesos. However, the dollar closed at 39.02 pesos, well below projections and with a annual decline of 2.62%. So far in January, and despite having traded higher in 7 of the 8 exchange sessions in 2024, it continues to fall short of forecasts.
Source: Ambito
