MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Indec says June's inflation in Argentina was 1.6%

The low Consumer Price Index (CPI) is fostering optimism for an improvement in Argentina's external accounts

Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec) reported on Monday that inflation in June was 1.6%, marking the second-lowest monthly figure of the year. This brings the cumulative inflation for the first six months of 2025 to 15.1%. The year-on-year inflation rate stood, thus, at 39.4%.

 Sectoral Price Increases over the last 12 Months include:

Education: 74.4%; Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuels: 69.2%; Restaurants and Hotels: 60.2%; Healthcare: 41.9%; Food: 32.3%.

In the first six months of 2025, these figures were: Education: 35.5%; Restaurants and Hotels: 22.5%; Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuels: 19.9%.

In June 2025 (Monthly): Education: 3.7%; Housing, Water, Electricity, and Other Fuels: 3.4% (due to rent and maintenance fee increases).

The lowest increases were recorded in Food and non-alcoholic Beverages (0.6%), and Clothing and footwear (0.5%)

The monthly inflation figure of 1.6% aligns with President Javier Milei's administration's goal of keeping price increases below 2% per month.

Economy Minister Luis Toto Caputo highlighted that core inflation in June was 1.7%, the lowest since May 2020 (or January 2018, excluding pandemic effects). He also noted 14 consecutive months of year-on-year inflationary deceleration, with the current 39.4% being the lowest since January 2021.

June's figure was slightly below the 1.8% consensus projected by private consulting firms and the Central Bank's Market Expectations Survey (REM).

In Buenos Aires City, inflation accelerated to 2.1% in June, bringing its first-half cumulative to 15.3% and its 12-month increase to 44.5%.

The low Consumer Price Index (CPI) is fostering optimism for an improvement in Argentina's external accounts. If the current trend of the dollar rising faster than inflation continues into July, it could lead to increased competitiveness for Argentine exports and a reduction in the current account deficit, which is a major concern for the government's economic agenda.