ANNUAL INFLATION ALMOST HALVED
Last year’s inflation was officially quantified at 117.8 percent when the INDEC national statistics bureau posted December inflation of 2.7 percent last Tuesday, sharply down from the 211.4 percent of 2023. Last month’s figure actually topped November’s 2.4 percent but the economic team was not disappointed due to the seasonal factors traditionally pushing up prices in the month of Christmas and the year-end bonus. The key item of food and beverages was below average at 2.2 percent with the main increases in the services sector while core inflation (excluding regulated and seasonal prices) was 3.2 percent. INDEC’s data included the information that a typical household of four needed to be peso millionaires (1,024,435 pesos, to be exact) to stay above the poverty line and 449,314 pesos not to be destitute. The Central Bank considered that there was sufficient progress to halve crawling peg devaluation on the same day from a monthly two percent to one percent as from February. On Thursday, the Central Bank then proceeded to approve dollar payments with debit cards and QR to advance in the free competition of currencies promised as from last year by the Javier Milei administration. As from yesterday the prices of goods and services can be given in US dollars or any foreign currency with the move optional for retailers.
EXTRAORDINARY SESSIONS
The government last Monday officially summoned Congress to extraordinary sessions between January 20 and February 21 with the agenda topped by the elimination of the PASO primaries and nominations for the Supreme Court, following the issue of Decree DNU 23/2025 signed by President Javier Milei and Cabinet chief Guillermo Francos. While the government is pushing for the permanent elimination of the PASO primaries as costly and useless, the opposition is more inclined to suspend them only for this year. Apart from the Supreme Court nominations of Ariel Lijo and Manuel Garcia Mansilla, the agenda also includes a government 'Ficha Limpia' (clean sheet) bill to disqualify candidates with upheld convictions for corruption and a raft of laws against organised crime, drug-trafficking and the release of recidivists, as well as bankruptcy legislation.
IN MILEI’S FAVOUR
The International Monetary Fund published just before the weekend its “Ex-Post Evaluation of Exceptional Access on the 2022 Agreement with Argentina” in which it praised the stabilisation programme of the Javier Milei administration as the “most impressive case in recent history” while adding new criticisms of the “failure” of his predecessor Alberto Fernández. The report was nevertheless accompanied by warnings about the level of reserves, currency appreciation and the need to lift the ‘cepo’ currency and capital controls as well as to introduce a monetary policy based on “guaranteeing real positive interest rates.”
A JEWISH NOBEL
The Genesis Prize Foundation announced last Tuesday that President Javier Milei had been awarded the “2025 Jewish Nobel Prize” – and US$1 million – for his contribution to and support for the State of Israel “at a critical moment in its history” with Milei responding: “I feel profoundly honoured to receive the Genesis Prize” and adding he would “donate” the cash “to the causes of liberty and the struggle against anti-Semitism.” The selection committee highlighted such presidential initiatives as his decision to transfer the Argentine Embassy to Jerusalem, his commitment to bringing those responsible for the terrorist attacks on Jewish targets in Buenos Aires to justice and the declassification of information on the death of AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman (exactly 10 years ago today) while Milei praised the “resilience” of the Jewish people.
ANTI-DUMPING RULES RELAXED
Economy Minister Luis Caputo last Wednesday announced changes in the anti-dumping system to make imports cheaper. The period of restricting the entry of imports competing unfairly by selling below the price in their country of origin will be reduced from five to three years with no possibility of extension beyond two years. The arbitrary or prolonged application of anti-dumping measures had become an “acquired right” for some industries enabling them to dodge competition and charge higher prices, complained the minister, citing the bicycle industry enjoying over 20 years of anti-dumping measures as an example with anti-dumping tariffs as high as 246 percent in some sectors. The minister explained that the reforms “sought a more transparent and balanced foreign trade.”
ROAD PRIVATISATION UNDERWAY
The government last Wednesday launched the privatisation of national routes with the tenders for the concession of toll highways to be resolved in the course of this year. The move had been announced several months ago but was finally formalised this week via Decree 28/2025, published in the Official Gazette.
THE SUN ALSO FUELS
The Energy Secretariat last Monday accepted two Mendoza solar parks (Aconcagua and Aconcagua III) into the national grid, thus enabling the western province to advance towards its aim of doubling its output of renewable energy, reaching a total of 1000MW of solar power thanks to private capital. At the same time the Parque Solar El Quemado is projected with an investment of some US$230 million adhering to the RIGI (Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones) major investment incentive scheme. Six other such projects are in the pipeline.
DIPLOMATIC PURGES
Uruguay’s incoming centre-left president Yamandú Orsi will have a new Argentine ambassador after current envoy Martín García Moritán (appointed last February by previous Foreign minister Diana Mondino) was dumped last Wednesday amid continuing diplomatic purges in an overhaul applying an economic and ideological “chainsaw.” Age (he is 71) was given as the reason for removing García Moritán, a criterion also applied to the ambassadors in Brussels and Pretoria but the new Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein is looking beyond the field of career diplomats for a new breed of “loyal” ambassadors “ideologically aligned” with the libertarian agenda. In the past week at least 13 diplomats have retired or resigned to bring forward their pensions which are now also under fire.
PATO HITS BACK
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich last Monday evening responded to denunciations of her anti-picket protocols by Amnesty International and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (CIDH in its Spanish acronym), calling them “progressive cry-babies who understand nothing” and continuing: “We gave back 46 million Argentines their human rights by liberating the streets and restoring private property.” Bullrich revealed that the Security Ministry received at least 50 denunciations of “brutal repression in the streets” from international organisations last year while last month Amnesty International published a report on Argentina entitled “Dissent in risk,” detailing that the 15 demonstrations covered ended in 1,155 people hurt, including 33 rubber bullet head wounds and 50 journalists injured. Following Bullrich’s statements, Amnesty International rejected her claim that they were indifferent to human rights violations in Venezuela, noting their various objections and statements over the years.
‘MADURO NO PERONIST’
Peronists in the Partido Justicialista (PJ), or at least its wing responding to its most recent presidential candidate Sergio Massa, have taken umbrage at Nicolás Maduro calling himself a “soldier of Perón” with former Customs director Guillermo Michel distancing the movement from the self-proclaimed three-term Venezuelan president by saying: “The Bolivarian revolution has nothing to do with Peronism.” In his X account, Michel wrote: “Nicolás Maduro should wash his mouth out before speaking of Perón,” adding: “Peronism was always a democratic movement which governed and embraced all Argentine society,” unlike the Maduro régime, “a government which does not respect democracy.” But other Peronists such as former two-term president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner did not echo Michel’s comments, remaining silent.
MONTENEGRO DENOUNCES DEATH THREATS
General Pueyrredón (Mar del Plata) Mayor Guillermo Montenegro on Monday denounced having received death threats via the Instagram social network reading: “They’ll shoot you dog, remember” and “You’re warned, you’ll be well and truly dead.” The intimidations come amid a municipal crackdown on squatters and street people extorting tourists while offering parking and window-cleaning services for their cars (“They’ll end up wiping the bars of their prison cells” was one of Montenegro’s verbal responses).
ALEJANDRA DARÍN DEAD AT 62
Alejandra Darín, President of the Argentine Association of Actors and Actresses (AAAA) and sister of the famous actor Ricardo Darín, died last Wednesday morning at the age of 62. The cause of her death was not divulged but was assumed to be cancer. The AAAA Web page paid tribute to an acting career extending over half a century in theatre, cinema and television, starting in childhood, as well as “defending with enormous valour the values of our union.”
