The IMF has presented a report to Argentine authorities with specific recommendations for developing a new, nationwide consumer price index to replace the much-criticized current index, the fund said in a press release Monday.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff arrived Monday at Argentina’s Statistics Bureau, Indec headquarters in Buenos Aires to meet with its chief Ana María Edwin and its Director Norberto Itzcovich and begin the elaboration of a new cost of living index.
The International Monetary Fund said Thursday it will send a team to Argentina again next month to continue work on revamping the government's discredited inflation measure, and will provide specific recommendations.
Inflation in Argentina advanced 0.7% in February over the previous month pushed mainly by increases in the clothing sector (2.2%) and leisure activities (3.5%), according to the official Indec National Statistics Bureau. During the first two months of the year, the consumer prices index accumulated 1.5%.
Next October Argentines will be going to the polls to vote for president and renew Congress which anticipates a rough political eight months, but before that the administration of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has to weather a round of labour contracts which will be demanding strong adjustments because of the “prices distortion and dispersion” since the word ‘inflation’ has been erased from the official jargon.
Argentina’s January trade surplus in January confirmed the shrinking tendency increasingly present all along 2010 as imports’ growth outpaced exports by two to one.
Argentina’s industrial output climbed 10.3% during January compared to the same month in 2010, according to the Indec national statistics bureau. The volume reported was higher than the one expected by analysts, who had announced an 8.1 percent increase of the Industrial Monthly Estimator (EMI) in January.
Argentina's unemployment rate fell to 7.3% in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to a Tuesday release from the country’s national statistics institute, Indec. Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had announced the number informally in a speech last week.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced Friday that Argentina’s economy is 2010 expanded 9.1% and unemployment in the fourth quarter experienced a further drop and now stands at a record low of 7.3%.
The number of foreign tourists visiting Argentina jumped 27.1% in 2010 compared to the year before, while dollars spent increased 25.9% according to air and sea arrivals and City of Buenos Aires numbers compiled by the country’s Statistics and Census Office, Indec.