With inflation soaring at 113%, Argentina should mothball its central bank and dollarize, top economist Steve Hanke says

• Top economist Steve Hanke doubled down on views that Argentina should adopt the US dollar as its currency.
• With inflation soaring at 113.4%, the John Hopkins University professor said Argentina should mothball its central bank and dollarize.

Argentina should "mothball" its central bank and adopt the greenback as its currency as red-hot inflation rages through the country, top economist Steve Hanke said.

The John Hopkins University professor has previously put forward similar views, when he said dollarization is Argentina's only way out of its deepening debt trap.

"In Argentina, official inflation has hit 113%/yr. STILL TOO LOW. I accurately measure inflation at a whopping 139%/yr ~1.2x the official rate. The solution: mothball the central bank and DOLLARIZE!" Hanke said in a Wednesday post on X.

Argentina's annual inflation came in at 113.4% in July, according to government data released on Tuesday. The rate remains close to June's peak of 115.6%, which was the highest level since 1991.

Just like Hanke, Argentina's presidential candidate has also called for ditching the peso and adopting the greenback as its local currency to tame inflation.

The Argentine peso plunged 20% against the dollar Monday, a day after presidential candidate Javier Milei scored a primary win. That led the country's central bank to hike its benchmark interest rate by 21 percentage points to 118% in a bid to calm markets.

But the peso has been in freefall since 2008 thanks to hyperinflation and a mountain of debt. The country's external debt surged to 45% of its GDP at the end of 2022, or $277 billion, according to CEIC data.

The currency crisis has largely been fueled by a shortage of the US dollar, forcing Argentina's commercial banks to set up deposit accounts in the Chinese yuan. The shortage was caused by an ongoing drought that struck the country's agricultural exports, depleting the central bank's dollar reserves to their lowest level since 2016.

Dollarization would walk back efforts by Argentina to wean itself off the greenback, like China, India and Brazil. Back in April, Argentina said it would start buying a chunk of its Chinese imports in yuan instead of dollars.