San Jose – Food inflation in Latin America and the Caribbean reached 8.9% in June compared to the same month of 2011, representing the highest level so far this year, reported United Nations for Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
This increase was influenced by increases in annual rates in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico, while inflation fell in El Salvador and Paraguay, according report of the FAO Regional Office, based in Santiago Chile.
Meanwhile, the overall annual inflation in the region maintains its downward trend between January and June decreased 6.9% to 6%.
“The gap between food inflation and general inflation increased to almost 3 percentage points, a level not seen since April 2009,” said the FAO.
Therefore, the incidence of food inflation in overall inflation also increased from 32% at end-2011 to 38% in June 2012.
Mexico was the country of the region had the largest increase in the region: in June the rate exceeded 8%, something not seen since October 2009, while in Costa Rica (5.7%) and Panama (9.4 %) also increased food inflation.
Meanwhile, in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, annual inflation, both general and food, have reduced their growth rate.
In South America, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador showed slight upward movements in both cases.
However, there were changes to the decline in Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and Venezuela.
In Paraguay, meanwhile, for the fourth consecutive month the rate was negative annual variation in food prices (-1.6%).
In Aruba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic were also signs of a slowdown in their respective annual rates of headline inflation and food.
In these countries, annual food inflation was below 5%, something not seen in these countries since the last quarter of 2010.
Trinidad and Tobago is in the opposite situation: its annual food inflation reached 28.3% in June, not seen since late 2010.
Chicken was a higher factor in the Dominican Republic, where it increased 14%, and the third product with the highest incidence in Nicaragua, with a variation of 1.6%.
Tomato had particular impact in Costa Rica and Colombia, with an increase of 15% in one month in both cases, while in Mexico, the price of tomato rose more than 51% and tomato green, 23%.
Onion had greater impact in Costa Rica, where it increased its price by 12%, and is one of the products with higher increases in Argentina and the Dominican Republic, with variations of 6.3% and 15.4%, respectively.
EFE
The Costa Rica news (TCRN)
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