Inflation rate of Latin American and Caribbean countries 2024

In 2024, only two Latin American or Caribbean country registered deflation in their average consumer prices. St Lucia and Costa Rica had the lowest change compared to the previous year with -0.45 and -0.41 percent, respectively. In contrast, the average inflation rate in Argentina amounted to about 219.89 percent.  

Latin America among the highest inflation rates in the world

In 2023, the average inflation rate of the region was around 14.41 percent. Which is significantly higher than the global average of 6.78 percent. Some of that is explained by countries such as Venezuela, Argentina, and Suriname ranking in the top then of countries with the highest inflation rate in the world.  

Chronic inflation in Latin America

Chronic inflation is often defined as persistent high inflation throughout a long time. Some of the common examples of this problem are Venezuela and Argentina, both countries had episodes of hyperinflation, with price increases considerably over 50 percent per month in both cases. The last few years, the global crisis and economic sanctions, attenuated the situation with Argentina reaching once again three-digit inflation and Venezuela exceeding 63,000 percent inflation in 2019.