MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina will unveil new inflation and GDP stats in February and March

Capitanich made the announcement a day after the IMF revealed it had established a timetable for Argentina

Argentina will unveil its new consumer price index (CPI) in February and a revised GDP index in March, Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich announced. The dates effectively comply with the demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that had extended a deadline for Argentina to improve the quality of its economic data.

 “Progress is being made in the preparation of a national CPI,” Capitanich said, adding that 290 officials would be working on collecting and analyzing 200,000 prices for diverse products and items.

He also confirmed that “in the month of February 2014 the first publication (of the national CPI) will be released and in March, the first publication of (the revised index of) gross domestic product,” a schedule that was reiterated by the Economy Ministry on Tuesday.

The decision came a day after the IMF board revealed in a statement that it had established a set timetable for Argentina “to implement specified actions to address the quality of its official CPI and GDP data”, which it said included “the public release of a new national CPI and revised GDP estimates, by (the) end (of) March 2014.”

If compliant, Argentina would be able to continue avoiding IMF sanctions including voting on IMF policies and blocked access to finance, even as the global lender extended the censure motion that has been in place on the country since February this year because of the disputed quality of its economic data, in particular its GDP and CPI index, the latter of which currently only includes prices from the Great Buenos Aires area.

Capitanich told reporters that details of the new CPI index will be announced in January, while the data itself will be released in February. Yet the Cabinet chief did not go as far as providing details of the revised GDP index, which might imply changes to current economic calculations, the revision of economic growth from previous years, and the repayment of debt if the new index reveals economic growth for Argentina above the stipulated 3.5%.

Economic analysts have accused the country of underreporting inflation since early 2007 for political gain and to reduce payments on its inflation-indexed debt. The government says its new CPI index, to be announced in January, is being designed according to international standards and with the input of academics from Argentina’s main educational institutions.