"Inflation in crisis-prone Argentina accelerated more than expected and for a fifth straight month in January, the country's statistics agency said Tuesday, a closely watched report whose outdated methodology in recent days stoked political turmoil and created a headache for libertarian President Javier Milei. Consumer prices rose 2.9% last month compared with December, said the statistics agency known by its Spanish acronym INDEC, largely owing to increases in the prices of food, restaurants, hotels and utility bills."
""It is very likely that the regulated public service prices in Argentina will see a strong increase this year, and the new methodology for measuring inflation will give those increases a lot more weight," said Camilo Tiscornia, director of Buenos Aires consultancy C&T Asesores Economicos and a former central bank official. "The government is engaged in a fight against inflation, so this index doesn't help.""
Inflation accelerated for the fifth consecutive month in Argentina, with consumer prices rising 2.9% in January compared with December, driven largely by higher costs for food, restaurants, hotels and utilities. The official index from INDEC uses a consumption basket based on 2004 habits that omits modern staples like Netflix subscriptions and iPhones and underweights rising expenses such as health care, electricity and rent. President Javier Milei's austerity measures and subsidy cuts have contributed to sharp increases in regulated public service prices. The government announced plans to redo the inflation index after mounting pressure. Economists expect the new methodology to give greater weight to regulated price increases.
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