More Argentines are likely living in poverty now compared with last year, as the country’s economy slides toward recession following a currency crisis and a severe drought that harmed farm output, Argentine President Mauricio Macri said on Friday.
Argentina’s economy has taken a beating this year after a run on the peso currency prompted the government to secure a US$50 billion credit line from the IMF.
The peso this month touched record lows again as investors fled emerging market assets due to concerns about Turkey’s economy.
“This devaluation brought a rebound in inflation, and inflation is the largest driver of poverty, and regrettably, we are going to lose some of the gains we have made in poverty reduction,” Macri told a news conference in the northwestern province of Jujuy.
Argentina’s 12-month inflation rate was 31.2 percent in July.
Poverty in Argentina decreased last year to 25.7 percent from 30.3 percent in 2016, Argentina’s official statistics agency, Indec, said.
Indec is expected to publish statistics on poverty for the first half of the year at the end of next month.
The Argentine Observatory of Social Debt, a think tank affiliated with Argentina’s Catholic University last month said it expects a 2 to 3 percent increase in poverty rates this year.
Economists expect the economy to contract 0.3 percent this year and grow 1.5 percent next year, a central bank survey showed.
“Next year the economy will grow,” Macri said. “Not much, but it will grow.”
Macri’s government in 2016 began publishing poverty statistics in a reversal from the former populist government, which stopped publishing poverty rates in 2013.
At the time, the government said only 5 percent of Argentines lived in poverty, a rate lower than Germany’s.
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