Inflation For the IMF, Argentina will again be among the most beaten countries in the world

WASHINGTON.- Argentina will once again be one of the highest inflation countries in the world, according to the latest forecasts by the International Monetary Fund (

MFIs

).

The ranking of countries that will experience the largest price increase is led by Venezuela, the only country in the world to hyperinflation, followed by Sudan, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Iran and, later, Argentina, ranked sixth. This year, only 18 countries will experience double-digit inflation.

Venezuela, implicated in a deep humanitarian crisis, will experience an unprecedented inflation of 10 000 000%; Sudan, 56.2%; Zimbabwe, 40.1%; South Sudan, 35.9%, and Iran, an annual price increase that will close the year at 31.2%, according to the Fund's forecasts contained in the World Economic Outlook (WEO), the relationship with the vision of the staff of the global economy.

For Argentina, the Fund expects a 1.2% decline in gross domestic product (GDP) for this year, an inflation of 30.5% – lower than the market forecast, which estimates a price increase of 36%. %. % and an increase in unemployment to 9.9%.

The Fund reiterated in its report that this year it foresaw that "upward inflation expectations would generate more persistent inflationary pressures" in the country.

The week before, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that
the results obtained by the Argentine program on inflation had "dececpionado". Lagarde and the
the staff The IMF welcomed the measures adopted by the Central Bank, led by Guido Sandleris, to curb rising prices, while stressing that it would be a "prolonged process".

In a paragraph devoted to Argentina, the IMF report states that "growth forecasts have been revised upward and that it is expected that higher nominal wages and inflation expectations higher will generate more persistent inflationary pressures in 2019 "with respect to the previous revision of the World Economic Outlook, presented last October.

"The risks to the economy are still considerable," said the agency.

The Fund's report has drawn a more pessimistic perspective of the global economy, although staff still do not see a recession on the horizon. Growth, which peaked at around 4% in 2017, slowed to 3.6% the year before and the Fund expects return to return at 3.3%. Argentina and Turkey figured, this year, at the top of the badysis of the global economy of the Fund: these are the two emerging countries that have suffered the greatest punishment in the markets of the world. 39, previous year.

"The escalation of trade tensions between the United States and China, the macroeconomic tensions in Argentina and Turkey, the disruptions of the auto sector in Germany, the tighter credit policies in China and the financial adjustment as well as the normalization of monetary policy in the major advanced economies, they have made a significant contribution and the global expansion has weakened, especially in the second half of 2018, "said Gita Gopinath, economist in head of the Fund.

"It's a delicate moment for the global economy," he summed up.