Argentina’s inflation slowed to the lowest level since September in a victory for President Javier Milei following a surge in March due to the Iran war-related energy shock.
Consumer prices rose 2.1% last month compared with April, below the 2.4% median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. From a year ago, inflation picked up marginally to 33.2% from 32.4%, according to data published Thursday by the statistics agency Indec.
Economy Minister Luis Caputo had said at a business conference last week that analysts expected inflation to slow again in May, after another slowdown in April. Telecoms saw the biggest price increases on higher phone costs, followed by education.
The positive print comes after Milei scored a rating upgrade from S&P Global Ratings, the second such upgrade this year after Fitch Ratings, bringing Argentina one step closer to regaining access to international capital markets. Dollar bonds jumped across the curve Thursday, with longer-dated securities rising more than 2 cents on the dollar.
In more good news for Milei, child poverty fell to 42.3% in the second half of last year, compared with 52.7% the previous year, according to Unicef.
Economists surveyed by the central bank in May forecast a 2026 year-end inflation rate of 30.5% and growth of 2.9%, revised up from 2.8% the previous month.