The IMF admitted to underestimating inflation and the Argentine economic crisis

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledged Wednesday that it underestimated the "incredibly complicated situation"of the Argentine economy and he also admitted that the control of inflation "took a lot longer" of the initial project.

This has been reviewed by the Executive Director of the Fund, Christine Lagarde, which, however, was "reasonably and optimistically positive" of the evolution of economic activity in the country, despite the stagnation of the productive apparatus and the fall in consumption.

Lagarde spoke Wednesday in Washington of the world situation at the Institute of American Business and answered a question about Argentina.

He then insisted that the implementation of the program agreed with the government of Mauricio Macri "will end up being a successful plan".

The IMF acknowledged that inflation in Argentina "is more rooted" than I thought

Lagarde expressed his opinion on the country in the first year of the largest agreement in the history of the Fund, which has reached a total of 57 billion USD.

The official also acknowledged that the agency and the government had underestimated the severity of the crisis, and that they were too optimistic about the forecasts to contain the price hike.

Referring to the country, he said: "It's an incredibly complex economic situation that many actors, including us among us, have underestimated a bit when we started trying to put together a program with the Argentine authorities ".

They expect inflation of 3% by May 2019, but it will exceed 40% by the end of the year.

Speaking of inflation, Lagarde warned that "instead of stabilizing and gradually decreasing as we had planned, it shows a resistance much higher than we thought."

"Now, it's starting to go down, but it's taking longer than expected," the IMF director repeated, referring to the continued rise in prices.

J.D. / CP