The Most South American countries started 2022 with an acceleration of inflationwith annual rates that quadrupled those of January last yearmainly due to increases in food prices and transportation rates.
These increases occurred despite attempts to mitigate them by raising interest rates by the respective central banks.
The The most extreme case in this regard is that of Chile.which despite having increased its reference rate eight times (from 0.5% in March 2020 to 4% in December 2021) began the year with 7.7% year-on-year inflation, more than double the 3, 1% from January 2021.
Other countries that doubled their annual rate of inflation with respect to the level of twelve months ago were Brazil and Perubut in the case of Paraguay the index tripled and in the Colombia quadrupled.
The Argentina is the last country in South America to publish its Consumer Price Indexwhich this time will be broadcast on February 15.
In any case, the latest Survey of Market Expectations (REM) reported an inflation forecast of 3.8% for January, with which the year-on-year accumulated would be around 50.7%, higher than 38.5 % of January last year.
Different consultants pointed out that food once again boosted the rise in the general index, with increases of around 4%.
Food and transportation, the highest incidence
With the particularities of each country, in general lines were the food and transport tariffs the factors with the greatest incidence in the acceleration of inflation region of.
It is the case of Colombiawhich in January had a monthly inflation of 1.67% and a year-on-year rate of 6.94%, when twelve months ago it had closed with an accumulated increase of 1.60%.
The National Administrative Department of Statistics He specified that the annual variation of the food and non-alcoholic beverages item was 19.94%, almost triple the general level.
Inflation in January Brazil was 0.54% and although it was lower than that of December, it was the highest for the first month of the year since 2016, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
(1/2) ? A #inflation slowed down to 0.54% in January. This was the best result for or months since 2016 (1.27%). Em 12 months, or #IPCA (Indice Nacional de Preços ao Consumidor Amplo) accumulates a rise of 10.38%.
Learned more about the disclosure of the hair #IBGE: https://t.co/7QSkhaCzJR pic.twitter.com/S1DQ3BFair
— IBGE Communicates (@ibgecomunica) February 9, 2022
But the reason for concern lies in the annual rate, which closed at 10.38% and for the fifth consecutive month it has not fallen below two digits.
The main inflationary factor in Brazil continues to be transportation, beyond the 0.11% drop in January, which was not enough to neutralize the 21.03% rise in all of 2021, in turn fueled by the rise of 49 .02% in fuels.
Another country in which the rise in transportation had a higher incidence than that of food was chiliwhich in twelve months registered an increase in this item of 20.9%, almost triple the 7.7% of general inflation and with the particularity of a 53% increase in the intercity bus fare, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
Paraguay It was another of the countries with the highest inflationary acceleration: in January the monthly index was 1.5% and the accumulated year-on-year reached 7.9%, tripling the 2.6% of January 2021.
The Guaraní economy showed similar year-on-year increases in food and non-alcoholic beverages (14.1%) and transportation (14%), which almost doubled the general level, with increases of 18% in fruits and vegetables and 34, 3% in fuels.
Although it still shows relatively low results in year-on-year inflation, with 2.56% Ecuador It is also noted among the countries with the greatest acceleration, since in January 2021 it had closed with a deflation of 1.04%.
Inflation for January was 0.72%, but the breakdown revealed the contrast between the 1.96% rise in food and non-alcoholic beverages and the 0.36% rise in the rest of goods and services.
Peru had in January an increase in the consumer price index of 0.18%, with year-on-year inflation of 6.33%, more than double the 2.92% of January last year.
Three countries showed lower year-on-year inflation than twelve months ago, although with very different realities.
bolivia had in January a rise in retail prices of 0.31%, with an annual rate of 0.74%, lower than the 1.17% of twelve months ago, with which consolidated as the country with the lowest inflation in South America.
The inflation of Uruguay In January, it was the highest in the region after Venezuela, with 1.78%, although its annual rate of 8.15% registered a decrease in relation to 8.89% in January 2021.
In the last twelve months, the Orientals had a rise of 13.16% in transportation, while food and non-alcoholic beverages showed a variation lower than the general one, with 7.03%.
By last, Venezuela continues with the highest inflationary levels in the region and the planetbut still showed a significant slowdown
In twelve months, year-on-year inflation fell from 2,665.4% to 472.5%, with one peculiarity: the item that rose the most year-on-year was not food or transportation, but education services, with 1,015.1%.
