RSSeNEWS to be determined...

Critics have accused the Argentine government of manipulating official inflation statistics to conceal the scale of the country's economic problems.

According to the research institute Ecolatina, the monthly inflation rate in January was 2.3 per cent. The official rate was just 1 per cent.

Ecolatina has close links with the Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires. Its inflation figure was compiled by the former head of the CPI team at INDEC, who was fired by the previous Argentine government lead by Nestor Kirchner, husband of the current president.

Consequently, the true inflation rate has been subject to questions by statisticians and economists for more than three years. Now the issue is feeding into wider controversy over the level of national debt and the macro economic policies pursued by president Cristina Kirchner.

photo: Edificio del Congreso Nacional Argentino, (Argentine National Congress) Buenos Aires by Eurico Zimbres