by John Palomino
Venezuela, Cuba and Argentina registered the highest inflation in 2022 compared to other Latin American countries, according to figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and BCC reports .
The report covers the period between October 2021 and October 2022, where the highest growth of the index is led by the Caribbean country, which accumulates an increase in inflation of 146%, exceeding that of Argentina by more than 50 percentage points (87 8%), the second on the list, and Cuba, which ranked third with 34.2%.
The British newspaper BBC described 2022 as the “year of high inflation”. Well, after the first half of the year, and with the ongoing war in Ukraine, inflation skyrocketed throughout the world, especially affecting food and energy prices, reaching a maximum in Latin America of 8.4% in June. , the highest level recorded since 2005.
It was not only the rise in fuel prices that played a key role in the sudden increase in the cost of living. The greater volatility of exchange rates also played a role, in addition to the traces left by the covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted global supply chains and in many cases caused the authorities to put more money into circulation than there was before the health crisis.
The trend was reversed in the second half of the year amid a rapid increase in interest rates adopted with the aim of combating price increases, added to the sharp slowdown in the global economy.
Regional inflation fell to 6.8% in October, compared to the same month of the previous year (what is known as annualized inflation).
And projections suggest that in 2023 inflation will continue to decline.
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John Palomino is a reporter for ADN America.
Photo “Argentina Capitol” by Gino Lucas Turra. CC BY-SA 3.0.
