Argentina’s annual inflation rate has hit a three-decade high, surging past 100 per cent for the first time since 1991 in a sign of how the country’s government has failed to tame price pressures that have torn across the economy.
Prices rose by 6.6 per cent in February, bringing the 12-month figure to 102.5 per cent, according to Indec, the government statistics agency. That was the quickest pace since Argentina was emerging from a hyperinflation crisis in the early 1990s, and places its inflation rate among the highest in the world.
Tuesday’s data comes at a complex moment for the centre-left administration of President Alberto Fernández, which had hoped to ease financial pressure on voters ahead of a tough election challenge in October.