Buenos Aires, Jan 30 (NA) – Despite inflation appearing to have stabilized at 2.5%, the Central Bank revealed it still observes risks of some acceleration in the first quarter of the year. According to the monetary authority, the BCRA closed the year at 31.5%, according to its Monetary Policy Report (IPOM). And it weighs the sharp deceleration experienced by the CPI over the last two years. The 2025 figure will be the lowest since 2017. This is despite the monthly inflation showing a slow but sustained rebound to 2.8% in December. In this scenario, the monetary authority acknowledges that in the first quarter of this year, the disinflation process 'faces risks'. These risks are linked to seasonal factors and the uncertainty derived from the change in the composition of the INDEC's CPI basket, which will debut with the January measurement, combined with the application of the new subsidy scheme, which implies a jump in energy tariffs. Among the risk factors, it lists the seasonality of Meats and by-products in the November-March period, which can affect the Core CPI category; and the planned correction in residential electricity and gas tariffs due to the readjustment of the subsidy scheme, with an impact on the Regulated category. It also recalls that in March, significant increases in the Education (Regulated) group and in Clothing (Seasonal) usually have a significant impact, in the latter case associated with the seasonal change for clothing. And it reveals that these transient impacts on inflation will also be affected by the weights of the consumption basket of the new CPI announced by INDEC. The entity said that once those transient pressures are overcome and the methodological changes of the CPI update are internalized, it is expected that inflation will deepen its downward trend. And explained that this will happen because the contractionary bias of monetary policy will be maintained, greater exchange rate stability expected by the economic team, and the outlook that collective agreements will reflect a lower inflationary inertia.
