The Consumer Price Index of the City of Buenos Aires (IPCBA) jumped 7.7% in July and accumulated 44.1% in the first seven months of the year. The interannual measurement, in turn, registered a rise of 69.2% in relation to the same month last year. This last indicator was 7.4 percentage points above the IPCBA for June.
The 7.7% measurement was at a record level since it is the highest increase for a month since that the Buenos Aires Government began to publish the measurement in July 2012.
The categories that registered the most important increases were Recreation and culture (13.3%) and Restaurants and Hotels (12.3%), both strongly influenced by the winter holidays. Apart from that seasonal factor, The segment that increased its prices the most was Clothing and Footwear, with 9.4%.
Once the index was disaggregated, a strong increase in prices linked to tourism was observed, which was offset by the brake that still applies to the increase in many services, such as transportation. In that way, “Seasonal goods and services averaged an increase of 15.1%, highlighting the increases in hotel accommodation rates, in the prices of clothing, in the values of tourist packages and, to a lesser extent, of vegetables. In year-on-year terms, this grouping accelerated to 85.0% yoy”.
As a counterpart to these strong increases, “The Regulated group increased 4.3%, mainly due to increases in prepaid medicine and formal education fees. It was followed in importance by the adjustment in the residential rate of the water supply service. Thus, this aggregate increased its growth rate to 45.7% yoy (+5.4 pp)”, explained the report from the Buenos Aires Institute of Statistics.
In this latter group, the only below-average increases were recorded, such as Health (5.1%), Transportation (3.1%), and Insurance and Financial Services (4.3%).
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