Bolivia sees inflation of 4 pct in 2016 below forecasts

Bolivia closed with an inflation rate of 4 percent in 2016, coming in below the yearly target of 5.3 percent, the government announced Friday.

The report by the National Institute of Statistics said that the consumer price index (CPI) for December had risen by 0.29 percent over November, leading to a cumulative 4 percent for the year.

In a television interview, Economy Minister Luis Alberto Arce Catacora said that Bolivia had managed to control the level of prices in 2016.

"This stability of product prices was maintained by the economic policy we established, despite facing adverse weather conditions in various regions of the country, on top of the inflationary pressure from neighboring countries which devalued their currencies," he explained.

The Bolivian government had set an inflation target of 5.3 percent for this year but Luis Ballivan, a former economist at the Central Bank of Bolivia, told Xinhua that the 2016 inflation rate had come in under that target.

He said the worst CPI for the year had come in June, when actual deflation was noted, after the government lowered the intensity of public investments.

"Inflation stayed within the parameters outlined by the government and we have no cause for worry. Economic stability seems to be resistant to pressure of neighboring countries who devalued their currency," added Ballivan. Enditem