Argentine inflation hit 7.4% in July - highest monthly rate since April 2002

Inflation in Argentina continues to be unstoppable: consumer prices increased by 7.4% in July alone, breaking a 20-year record, official data revealed.

Prices rose last month at the fastest pace since April 2002 - at the depths of the nation's post-convertibility crisis - and are up by a cumulative 46.2% so far in 2022.

Wholesale prices were likewise up by 7.1% in July, and 64.8% from the same time last year.

Argentine families paid 71% more than in July 2021 - the fastest clip since January 1992. This raised the monthly poverty line, for a family of four, to 111,300 pesos ($780) - a threshold nearly 38% of Argentines fell beneath.

Analysts estimate this year’s inflation at 90%, according to the Central Bank’s July survey of market expectations.

This news prompted the Central Bank to raise benchmark rates again, to 69.5% - the highest since the closing months of the Mauricio Macri administration in late 2019. This placed the yield on fixed-term deposits at around 98%.

Economy Minister Sergio Massa announced that most of the country's 7.5 million pensioners will receive a 7,000-peso ($49) bonus for each of the next three months - which, with a cost-of-living hike of 16%, will mean a 34% raise for median pension checks to just over 50,000 pesos ($350).

Pensioners had already received two 9,000-peso bonuses ($70 at the time) in May and June - after the Russian invasion of Ukraine pushed local inflation up from a monthly average of 3.5% last year, to an average of 5.8% monthly in March-June.

At: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/economy/inflation-hit-74-in-july-highest-monthly-rate-since-april-2002.phtml

Demonstrators march against inflation yesterday in Buenos Aires - which reached 71% annually in July and may exceed 90% for all of 2022.

"The march is to denounce those speculators and businessmen who seek to remove the Government with market coups, media coups, judicial coups, and by increasing the prices of basic necessities," the CGT, Argentina's largest labor federation, declared.

An escalation of already-high inflation in July - linked to a run-up in the unofficial, "blue" dollar exchange rate - threatens to derail the country's economic recovery, which saw 10.4% growth in 2021 and 6.2% in the first half of 2022 after three years of sharp recession.