Argentina’s annual inflation surged beyond 200 percent in 2023, the statistics agency said Thursday, as the country grapples with an economic crisis new President Javier Milei has vowed to address by slashing state spending.
Monthly inflation in December stood at 25.5 percent, said the INDEC agency, while the annual figure over 12 months was 211.4 percent.
Milei took office in December after winning a resounding election victory on a wave of fury over the country’s decades of economic crises marked by debt, rampant money printing, inflation and fiscal deficit.
Shortly after the self-described “anarcho-capitalist” took office, his administration devalued Argentina’s peso by more than 50 percent and announced huge cuts in generous state subsidies of fuel and transport.
Argentines remain haunted by hyperinflation of up to 3,000 percent in 1989-1990 and a dramatic economic implosion in 2001.
