MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine government and private sector coincide inflation is climbing, and fast

Blame the Buenos Aires subway hike for the January jump in consumer prices

Argentina’s consumer prices inflation reached 0.9% in January, accumulating 9.7% in the last twelve months according to the official Indec national statistics bureau. The index is less than half the private estimate or “Congress index”, 1.9%.

This is the fastest step since March 2010 when prices rose 1.1%. Indec said that a leading influence in the January index was the 127% hike of the subway tariff which represented 0.2% of the month’s inflation.

Opposition lawmakers announced on Thursday that prices rose 1.9% in January and approximately 23.5% in the last twelve months based on estimates of private economic consultancies which are banned from making public their estimates unless they follow official procedure for the estimates.

Early last year, Interior Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno imposed fines of as much as 500.000 pesos (115.000 dollars) on researchers for reporting that prices were rising faster than officially reported. Ecolatina and Orlando Ferreres & Asociados two internationally prestigious consultancies were among those sanctioned.

According to the official Indec, leisure costs, which include tourism and entertainment, rose 2.5% in the month, while transportation rose 1.9% fueled by the increase in subway rates.

Economists and politicians have questioned official inflation and GDP reports since January 2007, when then-President Nestor Kirchner changed personnel at the Indec statistics agency to what he said aimed to “improve operations”.

On February first the International Monetary Fund criticized Argentina’s “absence of progress” in improving statistics and said it needs to take steps to ensure it meets “the obligations of all member countries to provide accurate data” within 90 days.

The administration of President Cristina Fernandez has insisted in pointing out the influence of the 127% subway hike since last month the highly subsidized system was transferred to the City of Buenos Aires, without the monthly support cheque.

The Mayor of the City of Buenos Aires is Conservative Mauricio Macri considered one of the presidential hopefuls for 2015 with greatest potential to oust the ruling coalition.