Énfasis diferente en discursos de Carstens, Sánchez

Genevieve Signoret & Patrick Signoret

En una presentación el 22 de febrero, las palabras Agustín Carstens relacionadas con la política monetaria reflejaron ampliamente el lenguaje de la minuta de política monetaria más reciente, en el que Banxico se muestra preparado para reducir tasas. Dos días antes, sin embargo, Manuel Sánchez (miembro de la Junta de Gobierno de Banxico) se mostró más cauteloso.

Carstens:

En enero de 2013 la Junta de Gobierno manifestó que de consolidarse el entorno de menor crecimiento y menor inflación, podría ser aconsejable una reducción del objetivo de la Tasa de Interés a un día.

De consolidarse este entorno, y dado el comportamiento favorable de las expectativas de inflación, una reducción en la tasa de referencia podría ser congruente con el proceso de convergencia de la inflación a su meta permanente de 3 por ciento.

En todo caso, la Junta de Gobierno vigilará la evolución de todos los factores que podrían afectar a la inflación, con el fin de estar en condiciones de alcanzar el objetivo permanente de 3 por ciento.

Sánchez:

In December 2012 and January 2013, inflation fell to below 4 percent, a welcome development in light of the previous considerable deviation from the target. Nevertheless, the recent decline in inflation should be seen with caution. This is because, first, it is based only on two observations, which cannot yet be proven to be the beginning of a new trend.

Second, the drop in inflation depended significantly on sharp declines in telecom prices and moderating agricultural price increases. If one were to exclude the effect of telecom prices on inflation in December and January, inflation would have been above and practically on the upper limit of the variability interval, respectively. Also, as occurs with negative disturbances, positive shocks like the recent ones sooner or later die out and could be followed in their own turn by adverse shocks.

Third, the proportion of the components of the National Consumer Price Index (INPC) basket with annual increments higher than 4 percent is still substantial. Fourth, the two most recent inflation prints exceed the target and do not even correspond to the lowest inflation rates observed in Mexico during recent years.

These caveats are all the more important as the target has not been achieved in the past, in the sense that inflation has not been fluctuating around 3 percent. In fact, since the end of 2003 when this objective became effective, inflation has varied around a mean of 4.3 percent. Moreover, during the nine years after the establishment of the target, inflation has not exhibited any clear path of convergence towards it. This lack of convergence may partially explain why inflation expectations for the short and medium terms, as reflected in analysts’ surveys, have long remained stubbornly above the target.

[…The] short period of recent improvement in inflation, the extraordinary factors that explain it, and the absence of convergence toward the inflation target, require a vigilant monetary policy. Convergence of inflation to the permanent target demands more than a few months of good results.

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