The International Monetary Fund (IMF) kept its inflation forecast for Argentina unchanged in its October World Economic Outlook, projecting more pessimistic figures for this year and the next than the government’s 2025 budget bill.
While the budget forecasts price rises of 104.4% for 2024 and 18.3% for 2025, the IMF countered that those numbers would actually be 140% and 45%, respectively. The government also predicted that GDP would fall by 3.8% in 2024 and bounce back by 5% in 2025. The Fund held a slightly more optimistic projection, with the economy shrinking by 3.5% this year and growing 5% the next.
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, explained in a Tuesday press conference that the projections haven’t been updated since July “because there are ongoing program discussions between the authorities and the Fund.”
“While that process is going on, we did not update the projections for the October round,” he added.
Gourinchas said that the government has made “very substantial” progress on the inflation front but added that the country’s economic activity “has contracted substantially in the first half of the year.”
“But there are signs that it’s starting to gradually recover. Now, I cannot give you an update on how much, because we do not have [that figure] as of now,” he added.
Economy Minister Luis Caputo is currently in Washington, DC, taking part in the IMF’s and World Bank’s Annual Summit. The ministry has not officially confirmed whether he will meet with the Fund’s authorities.