VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBU #0629/01 1331658
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 121658Z MAY 08
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1015
INFO RUCNMER/MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RHMFISS/HQ USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL IMMEDIATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 000629 
 
SIPDIS 
 
LABOR FOR BLS E.TAYLOR AND W.LANE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/12/2018 
TAGS: ECON EEFIN ETRD EINV AR
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA INFLATION CONTROVERSY: GOA TO LAUNCH NEW 
CPI INDEX 
 
REF: BUENOS AIRES 610 159 117 AND PPREVIOUS 
 
Classified By: EconCouns D.P.Climan. Reasons 1.5 (B,D) 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1. (C) The GoA plans to roll out a "new and improved" 
consumer price index (CPI) in June to allow national 
statistics agency INDEC to recover some of its lost 
credibility.  The new index will measure a narrower basket of 
goods and services and will allow product weightings to be 
changed frequently to account for substitution effects in 
patterns of consumption, quality, and seasonality.  Local 
analysts fear this new methodology offers the GoA significant 
discretionary power to continue it's under-reporting of 
actual inflation.  Many of these analysts argue that the new 
index will arrive stillborn, particularly because it has been 
designed and will be measured and calculated by the same 
people involved in the current inflation misreporting 
controversy.  Clearly, the government will need to work hard 
to establish the credibility of the new index.  End Summary. 
 
----------------------------------------- 
Technical Seminar to Launch New CPI Index 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU)  On May 7, GoA statistics agency INDEC hosted a day 
long International Seminar on Inflation Indices "technical" 
conference on CPI methodology calculation.  By special INDEC 
invitation, Walter Lane, Chief of Consumer Prices of 
Department of Labor's Division of Consumer Prices and Price 
Indexes, participated, along with specialists from the 
Spanish and French statistics bureaus.  According to 
attendees, the 200-strong conference audience appears to have 
been carefully controlled by INDEC and included large numbers 
of INDEC employees and union representatives. 
 
¶3. (U) At the conclusion of the conference, Chief of Cabinet 
Alberto Fernandez announced that, after eight months of 
testing, a new INDEC CPI measure will be launched in June, 
measuring May inflation.  According to Fernandez, the new CPI 
index will "update" the basket of goods measured by the 
current CPI index to better reflect the spending patterns of 
the Argentine population.  This includes reducing the basket 
measured from about 800 in the current basket to 440. 
Fernandez also noted that the new index would be a 
"chained-index" (as opposed to the current fixed-basket 
index) in which product weightings would be changed 
frequently to account for substitution effects in patterns of 
consumption, quality, and seasonality. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Local analysts note that the adoption of a chained 
CPI index offers the GoA significant discretionary power to 
re-weight the index, which could be used to smooth or hide 
increases in inflation and continue alleged misrepresenting 
of actual inflation.  Many of these local analysts argue that 
the new index will have little credibility since has been 
designed and will be calculated by the same people that have 
been involved in the current inflation misreporting 
controversy (Reftels). 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
New CPI: Higher or Lower than Current Official CPI? 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶5. (C) Official annualized GoA inflation is currently 
reported in the 8.8% range.  However, according to a number 
of independent economists who calculate domestic inflation 
via proxy indicators (e.g. by "deflating" VAT tax 
collections), inflation currently stands well above 20% 
year-on-year.  Embassy contacts at local economic think-tanks 
and at international commercial and investment banks who 
follow this issue tell us they believe that the GoA simply 
will not allow the new CPI index to acknowledge such a high 
rate of inflation.  Some argue that the GoA, in an effort to 
regain some of its tarnished credibility, will allow the new 
index to reflect a few more points of inflation, possibly 
taking it to the lower teens versus the 8.8% reported under 
the current index. 
 
¶6. (C) Other analysts are more cynical and point out comments 
made by the current head of INDEC's CPI division Beatrice 
Paglieri that the new methodology implies lower consumer 
price inflation than the current methodology.  A report in 
financial daily Ambito Financiero on May 8 claims that test 
runs of the new index yielded an inflation rate below the 
current official one.  (Press reports before the resignation 
of Economy Minister Lousteau reported that he had argued with 
others over test runs of the new index because they were 
producing lower inflation numbers.)  Analysts here also note 
that, in the US, the chained CPI measure has been 
consistently lower than the headline CPI by 0.2% to 0.8% per 
year, with consequent "underreporting" of the U.S. chained 
CPI at around one fifth of headline U.S. inflation.  With 
significantly larger price variations in Argentina, they 
argue that chained CPI underreporting relative to 
conventional CPI measures will be larger in Argentina. 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) INDEC's inflation figures have been under fire for 
the past 17 months, since its director and key CPI staff were 
replaced by political appointees in January and February 
¶2007.  INDEC inflation calculations have since been 
challenged in local courts by consumer NGOs.  Their accuracy 
has been questioned directly by international financial 
markets and obliquely by both the IMF and World Bank. 
Dissident INDEC employees organize public demonstrations 
regularly, claiming that raw CPI input data has been 
systematically manipulated to arrive at official inflation 
figures that -- over the past four months -- are roughly 60% 
below independent estimates. 
 
¶8. (C) Beyond the technical methodological questions 
surrounding INDEC's new "chained" CPI calculation, most 
analysts are focused on whether true market prices will be 
used as inputs into its calculation.  Argentine and 
international analysts agree that both old and new INDEC CPI 
indices should show inflation rates similar to true 
underlying inflation so long as actual market prices for 
goods and services are used as primary inputs.  However, 
given that GoA price surveys will continue to be conducted as 
they are being done now, most of these analysts say they 
believe the new index will arrive "stillborn," with little 
credibility. 
 
¶9. (C) If true, this will not bode well for perceptions of 
the Argentine economy by local market participants as well as 
by outside observers and actors.  The tarnished credibility 
of INDEC CPI statistics has already called into question the 
reliability of linked GDP growth data (which independent 
observers argue is overstated by a low GDP deflator) and well 
as poverty and indigence statistics.  It also puts in doubt 
the ability of the GoA to engineer "Social Pacts" (Reftels) 
between business and labor to attempt to control spiraling 
wage and price increases over the medium term.  Clearly, at a 
minimum, the government will have to work very hard to 
establish the credibility of its new CPI Index. 
WAYNE