Saturday April 15, 2023 | 10:05 p.m.
The Chief of Staff, Agustín Rossi, admitted today the problems that the government is facing to control inflation, after the 7.7% index that was shown in March. “We thought that we were achieving it, but it was not like that,” acknowledged the coordinating minister of the cabinet.
“Clearly it is not what we expect nor does it go in the direction of the effort that we have been making to try to find a downward path for inflation,” he said.
“Nobody can be happy -except us- with this inflation indicator. Then, there are a number of technical explanations. We have inflation that has been traveling at a high rate and when seasonal issues are added to that trip, it clearly ends up generating a number of these characteristics, that the only thing it does is question us”, indicated Rossi.
And he stressed that there is a government decision to “redouble efforts” to go in search of a downward path in prices.
“We thought that in the last quarter of last year we were achieving it. It was not like that in the first and second months of the year, nor in the third,” he acknowledged.
In addition, he pointed out that “clearly, we have an assessment of what happened in January. The first fortnight prices were moving more or less at the same level as in November and December, and in the second fortnight an acceleration begins from what which is known as, in quotes, that the market takes note of the negative effect that the drought was going to have on the reserves and begins the attempt at a devaluation run, which is what has been accompanying Minister Sergio Massa since he took over the economy”.
Rossi maintained that “the pain that inflation generates for society as a whole, especially in the popular sectors, we understand and it is very upsetting that it happens in our government,” adding that the government hopes “that the indicators registered in March do not be observed again in the rest of the year”.
“Seasonally, March is always a complicated month. It is complex, it has a change of season and it has been impacted by seasonal issues, the lengthening of summer and a series of circumstances… I don’t want to make excuses, but March is always a month with inflation above average. We hope that April clearly marks a decline in the inflationary process in Argentina,” he said in radio statements.
