The BCRA Keeps its Monetary Policy Rate Unchanged at 24.75%. Buenos Aires, December 13, 2016. The CPI for the City of Buenos Aires and the CPI for Córdoba were released last week; they were published by the City of Buenos Aires and the province of Córdoba, respectively. The results of the last few months were as follows:
| August | September | October | November | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of Buenos Aires | Headline | -08 | 1,3 | 2,9 | 2,0 |
| Core | 1.6 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 1.6 | |
| CÓRDOBA | Headline | 0,3 | 1,8 | 2,2 | 1,2 |
| Core | 1.6 | 2.0 | 1.7 | 1.2 |
Inflation figures decreased in both districts compared to those of October, both for the headline and core inflation levels. Decreases were similar: 0.9 and 1.0 percentage points in headline inflation, and 0.4 and 0.5 in core inflation for the City of Buenos Aires and Córdoba, respectively, although starting from higher levels in the former. Headline inflation in the City of Buenos Aires includes 0.25 percentage points due to the carryover from the gas price increase that occurred in October.
In turn, the estimates and high-frequency indicators from public and private sources monitored by the BCRA suggest that prices have been in line with expectations of a 1.5% or lower average inflation rate—measured by the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos, INDEC) for Greater Buenos Aires—in the last quarter of 2016.
In view of the available data, the BCRA decided to keep the 35-day LEBAC rate and the center of the repo corridor at 24.75%.
As part of the transition to the 7-day repo rate as the monetary policy rate, to take place in January, the BCRA reduced the width of the overnight repo corridor from 600 to 500 basis points and that of the 7-day repo corridor from 500 to 300 basis points.
The BCRA will continue taking anti-inflationary measures to ensure a sustained disinflationary process towards its inflation target between 12% and 17% in 2017.
