The private projection on the evolution of retail prices for 2023 also increased compared to last month’s survey, going to 84.1%, reflecting an increase of 7.6 percentage points. This forecast, included in the Market Expectations Survey (REM) report published this Friday, corresponds to the analysis of the last week of August 2022.
Argentine inflation, one of the highest in Latin America, was 71% in July 2022 and 7.4% monthly, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec), which will release the price index to the public next Wednesday. August 2022 consumer.
The BCRA’s expectations report forecasts a monthly inflation of 6.5% for August 2022.
DEBTS. Inflation expectations moved further away from the ranges of 52%-62% for 2022 and 46%-54% for 2023 forecasted in assumptions, which had already been revised, of the agreement reached by Argentina with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). ) to refinance debts for more than 40,000 million dollars.
On the other hand, experts expect the GDP in Argentina to grow by 3.6% in 2022, 0.2 percentage points above the previous measurement, and they project that the GDP will increase by 1% in 2023, 0.5 percentage points. below the percentage forecast the previous month.
In this case, the market projections do not differ from the agreement with the IMF, which foresees that Argentina’s GDP, which rose 10.2% last year, will increase this year between 3.5 and 4.5%, according to the IMF.
In addition, for December 2022, experts project a nominal exchange rate of 170.11 pesos per US dollar, compared to a value of 141.38 pesos per dollar at the close of this Friday in the official wholesale market of Argentina.
NEW LOANS. Meanwhile, the World Bank (WB) confirmed a new loan of 900 million dollars to Argentina during a meeting in Washington with Economy Minister Sergio Massa, the agency reported in a statement.
This amount, which will be disbursed over the next six months, adds to the 1,100 million dollars approved this year, says the note, which specifies that the Argentine government plans to allocate part of the funds to sanitation works, the health system, training of workers and poor children.
During his official visit to the United States this week, Massa multiplies the meetings and has already scored a few, since on Tuesday he took almost 5,000 million dollars from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for 2022 and 2023.
On Wednesday, he held a meeting with the managing director of World Bank operations, Axel van Trotsenburg, to whom he presented the government program with which he intends to “build international reserves and stabilize macroeconomic conditions” in Argentina, says the World Bank statement.
WITH THE IMF, TOMORROW. But the big day will be tomorrow, when he will meet with Kristalina Georgieva, director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with which Argentina negotiated an agreement for 44.5 billion dollars this year.
In addition, the minister is holding meetings in Washington with officials from the government of President Joe Biden.
He spoke at the White House with Juan González, Biden’s adviser for Latin America, and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser.
Massa confirmed to González “the decision to meet the goals” set forth in the IMF agreement for the next review.
Under this agreement, Argentina committed to reducing the fiscal deficit from 3% of the registered gross domestic product in 2021 to 2.5% in 2022, 1.9% in 2023 and 0.9% in 2024.
Parallel to his visit, a technical team from the International Monetary Fund is holding meetings with an Argentine delegation in Washington to work on the second review of the credit program.
Millions of dollars will be lent by the World Bank to Argentina, which needs dollars to fulfill its agreement with the IMF.