Argentina apply new method of inflation, after IMF vote of no confidence

February 3, 2013
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Argentina announced Saturday it will launch this year a new method of measuring inflation, after the vote of no confidence issued by the IMF for the controversial South American country’s official statistics.

“We are anticipating enact later this year, in the last quarter, a new consumer price index (CPI) to replace the current, which supposedly has so many problems for the IMF,” Economy minister Hernan Lorenzino said.

For the first time in its history, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Friday issued a vote of no confidence against Argentina for its questioned inflation and made the government of Cristina Kirchner to reform its statistics before 29 September.

“It’s an ongoing process and is aware of that Fund. We believe it will be effective in the fourth quarter of 2013,” insisted the minister, who criticized the decision of the IMF to consider examining countries with a “double standard”.

“Does the IMF know that many countries changed, for example, the measurement of unemployment and others have changed their IPC products several times, and even their measurement methodologies, such that if the above were used their indexes would three times higher than today?”, asked economic authority in a statement.