MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina’s inflation in 2012 climbed to 25.6% according to private agencies

Lawmakers members of the Freedom of Expression committee making the announcement

The 2012 twelve-month inflation in Argentina climbed to 25.6%, two times the figures registered by the official data from stats office Indec, according to the index presented by opposition lawmakers based in the analysis of nine private agencies.

The latest release for the month of December shows inflation reached 2.1% in December, triggered by the New Year's eve consumption and the beginning of the southern hemisphere summer holidays.

According to Argentina’s Indec national statistics bureau, the inflation had accumulated 9.7% between January and November, which could add up to 11% with the volume registered in December, more than a half of the figures released by the private agencies.

The announcement was made during a Monday press conference headed by Patricia Bullrich (Unión por Todos), Carlos Brown (Peronist Front), Cornelia Schmidt-Liermann (PRO)and Patricia De Ferrari (Radical Party), all belonging to the Freedom of Speech Lower House Committee.

Regarding the results, Brown assured that “the index is the highest in the region, including Venezuela, leading to a drop of the activity levels”.

During every month of 2012 and 2011, the official Indec inflation has been consistently lower, (below half) than the so called Congressional index based on the average of nine private agencies that if they release the numbers on their own are exposed to heavy fines. Thus the congressional index released by the Freedom of Speech committee participation and which is used as a reference by the private sector, trade unions and the Judiciary.

Argentina’s alleged manipulation of inflation and GDP indexes has been seriously questioned by the IMF and the World Bank. GDP indexes are linked to the yields of some of the restructured defaulted bonds.

In 2011 the Congressional inflation index marked 22.8%.