Argentina will introduce an index to measure nationwide movements in consumer prices in the second half of 2013, Norberto Itzcovich, technical director of the national statistics agency, said today.
The index wouldn’t replace the current index used to measure prices in Buenos Aires, which would continue to be published, Itzcovich said at a news conference in the capital.
The International Monetary Fund has been pressing President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to introduce data that accurately reflect price movements in South America’s second-biggest economy. Opposition lawmakers on Sept. 12 said that, based on estimates provided by private researchers, year-on-year inflation was 24 percent in August compared with the official figure of 9.8 percent.
“Until we have one, common national CPI index for everybody we may have to use more than one” source of information, Nicolas Eyzaguirre, director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere department, said in Washington on Sept. 23.
Itzcovich said today that the IMF’s planned use of data supplied by private researchers would be a “mess.”
Economists including former central bank President Alfonso Prat-Gay have questioned the official reports since 2007, when then President Nestor Kirchner began changing personnel at the national statistics institute in a bid to “improve operations.”
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