Thus the neighboring country entered the triple digit clubthat is to say, the group of countries that today have inflation records above 100%.
The updated data shows that today that club is made up of four countries. Its leader for quite some time is Venezuela. The Caribbean country registered inflation of 537.7% in the year ending February 2023, from 440% in January, according to measurements by the Venezuelan Finance Observatory.
Among the worst in the world is also Syria. That Asian country had inflation of 139%, although the last official record dates from 2020.
In the third location comes Lebanon with inflation of 124%. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), its economy is “severely depressed” with a drop in employment, foreign exchange reserves and income.
And in fourth place comes Argentina with 102.5%, after the rise of 6.6% computed in February. The monthly data reveals figures that are far from the forecasts made by the economic management months ago, when a slowdown in price dynamics was expected that would end with a figure of less than 4% next April.
In February alone, Argentina had more inflation than Ecuador and Bolivia combined in the entire past year. The year-on-year record also far exceeds all the added inflation of these two countries, plus Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, Chile and Colombia in the last 12 months.
The top 10 of inflation
The ranking of highest inflation in the world is occupied in fifth place by Zimbabwe, although its record is in double digits (92.3%). The African country reached a record of 260% in October last year.
The top ten is completed by Sudan (83.6%), Suriname (55.5%), Turkey (55.2%), Iran (53.4%) and Ghana (52.8%), according to data from Trading Economics .
The IMF forecast
The update report on the economic prospects published in January by the IMF shows that in Approximately 84% of the world’s countries are projected that the headline level of inflation will be lower in 2023 than in 2022.
The projected disinflation is partly due to lower international prices for fuels and non-fuel commodities due to weaker global demand.
Also the tightening of monetary policy that exerts a cooling effect on core inflation, which is expected to fall globally from 6.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022 (year-on-year) to 4.5% in the fourth quarter of 2023.
