MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine gov't sees inflation decelerating

Milei “needs to have the political and economic tools” that will allow him to face “many problems,” including inflation, Zago explained

Argentine President Javier Milei told the audience at his girlfriend's show at a Mar del Plata theater that “inflation has started to go down” and that the country “will soon move forward.” The head of state traveled on Saturday to the popular beach resort to be with Fátima Flórez during her birthday celebrations and returned to Buenos Aires on Sunday to make the arrangements for his trip abroad starting Monday.

Last “time, when I came [here], we were a few days away from the beginning of the administration, and I said it was going to be difficult but we were going to make it,” said Milei about his Dec. 29 trip.

“We are achieving it. We avoided hyperinflation, inflation started to go down and we are going to get ahead soon, so with faith we are going to get ahead,” he insisted.

Meanwhile, Congressman Oscar Zago, who heads Milei's Libertarian bloc on the Lower House, forecast that January's inflation would reach 20%. The National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec) is yet to release the official figures. In December it was 25.5%.

Zago insisted that the broad approval of the so-called Omnibus Law bill was “the first step” on the way to sanction a legislative “tool” to allow Milei to unroll “his economic plan” to stabilize the country.

In January, “You are going to have an approximate inflation of 20%; we would like to have something less, but we are reducing it,” Zago said in a radio interview. In his opinion, 20% was “very good even though it is very high.”

Milei “needs to have the political and economic tools” that will allow him to face “many problems,” including inflation, Zago explained.