Argentina's inflation ends 2019 at 54%, highest since 1991

[BUENOS AIRES] Inflation in Argentina ended 2019 at 53.8 per cent, the highest figure since 1991 when the peso was pegged to the US dollar, data institute Indec said on Wednesday.

Indec said the cost of living increased by 3.7 per cent in December alone.

The hardest hit sectors were health (72 per cent), communications (64) and home maintenance equipment (64).

Argentina's inflation rate is one of the highest in the world and second only in Latin America to crisis-hit Venezuela.

Argentine inflation in 2018 was already 48 per cent.

The South American country is mired in a recession provoked by a currency crash 18 months ago.

Poverty has soared since then.

Argentina is no stranger to inflation having recorded figures of more than 3,000 per cent in 1989 and 2,300 per cent the next year.

In 1991, the country tried to fix its problems by hitching the peso's value to the dollar. But that was abandoned 11 years later after Argentina defaulted on a US$100 billion debt in the midst of a financial crisis that began in 2001.

AFP